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Abstract
Aversion towards logic is a characteristic feature of the Islamic traditionalists. There is in fact a history of opposition to logic in Islam. As any other areas of history, here also the correct picture will not be achieved unless all of the pieces are put together. In what follows, I am going to shed light on a chapter written by Zayn al-Dīn al-ʿĀmilī (d. 966/1558), the Twelver Shīʿī Scholar better known as al-Shahīd al-Thānī. The chapter not only shows al-Shahīd al-Thānī’s negative stance towards logic, but also is important because it is a part of less studied Shīʿite traditionalists’ tendencies towards logic; those who are considered as the most influential figures in Iranian seminaries from the Safavid period up until today.
Acknowledgements
This article is the completed form of what I have previously presented in the 2nd annual Islamic Philosophy Conference at Harvard University, December 5–6, 2020. The YouTube link of the panel in which I delivered my presentation is as follows: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-PSL8XEKLo. I would like to express my special thanks of gratitude to Dr Asadollah Fallahi, associate professor at the Department of Logic in the Iranian Institute of Philosophy, for generously reading the draft and proposing useful revisions.
Notes
1 For more information about him see: https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/al-shahid-al-thani-SIM_6763.
2 For Tabāṭabāyī’s impassioned defence of logic see Tabāṭabāyī Citation1996/Citation1417, vol. 5, p. 254. For an English translation of his discussion, see Ṭabāṭabāyī Citation1983/Citation1403, vol. 10, p. 68–77. Tabāṭabāyī reports eleven criticisms to logic and answers them in detail. He does not reveal the name of the critics, but the translator of the text into English, Sayyid Saʿīd Akhtar Raḍawī, ascribes them to Akhbārīs (see Ṭabāṭabāyī Citation1983/Citation1403, vol. 10, p. 68). But the translator of the text into Persian, Musawī Hamidānī, refers to Saykh Mujtabā Qazwīnī instead (Ṭabāṭabāyī Citation1995/1374Sh, vol. 5, p. 419–420).
3 For Qazwīnī's attack to logic see Qazwīnī's book, Bayān al-Furqān. Sajjad Rizvi considers this book as one of the works that have formed the foundation of Maktab-e Tafkīk (Rizvi Citation2012, 493). For a Persian translation of the book see Qazwīnī 2013/1392.
4 See Hourani Citation1986, p. 135. It is also important to note Hourani’s remark that ‘the possibility of persecution was always present, but at the same time Sunnī and Shīʿī Scholars could learn from each other’. Hourani in fact seeks support for this claim by referring to the lives and deaths of al-Shahīd al-Awwal and al-Shahīd al-Thanī (see Hourani Citation1986, p. 135).
5 See Kohlberg Citation1997, p. 209. He is offered thereby a choice of any teaching position in Damascus or Aleppo (Kohlberg Citation1997, p. 209).
6 In fact, all of his major legal works are said to be in the form of commentaries (Kohlberg Citation1997, p. 209). ‘These works are noted for the clarity of their exposition and argument’ says Kohlberg (Kohlberg Citation1997, p. 209).
7 See Kohlberg Citation1997, p. 209.
8 For this claim, see: https://en.wikishia.net/view/Al-Shahid_al-Thani.
9 See Hourani Citation1986, p. 136.
10 According to Hourani, he did actually teach all of the five after he went to Istanbul and obtained from the Ottoman government an appointment as a teacher in a Sunnī madrassa at Baʿlabak (see Hourani Citation1986, p. 136).
11 See Newman Citation1993, p. 92. His family came to Persia though, albeit much later (Hourani Citation1986, p. 138).
12 For an effort to show the indirect impact of al-Shahīd al-Thānī on Iranian religious discourse, see Ā’īniwand Citation2010. For him al-Shahīd al-Thānī must be considered as one of those who killed the philosophically inclined sphere dominant on Iranian seminaries, replacing it with a more jurisprudentially inclined one.
13 This does not contradict with the fact that, as Newman says, there be no record of ʿIzz al-Dīn Ḥusayn himself as having made contact with the safavids (See Newman Citation1993, p. 93). This shows only that the influence has been an indirect one.
14 See Hourani Citation1986, p. 138.
15 For an unpublished manuscript version of the book (accessible online), see al-Shahīd al-Thānī Citationn.d.
16 For a good research in this field but focused to al-Suyūṭī, see Ali Citation2008.
17 See al-Shahīd al-Thānī Citation1988, p. 176.
18 See al-Shahīd al-Thānī Citation1988, p. 178–182.
19 In noticing to the latter reading of the word, I am indebted to my dear colleague, Muhammadrizā Azīzī.
20 See Adamson Citation2014, p. 105. Adamson relates this from the Seventh letter whose ascription to Plato is doubtful. But what is important for us here is the idea itself not its ascription to Plato.
21 See Leaman Citation2000, p. 17.
22 See al-Shahīd al-Thānī Citation1988, p. 180.
23 See Adamson Citation2016, p. 143.
24 See Gleave Citation2010, p. 71. This is a contemporary Shīʻī school which insists on the necessity of separating Mystical and philosophical ideas from Islamic teachings.
25 See Iṣfahānī Citation2008, p. 99.
26 Ṭabāṭabāyī Citation1995/1374Sh, vol. 5, p. 430.
27 Rita Citation1979, p. 89.
28 Rita Citation1979, p. 38.
29 Al-Shahīd al-Thanī is not innovative in this argument, but his attitude is clear.
30 See Adamson Citation2016, p. 318. In other words, ‘Defining a term would then be a matter of claiming to know it before it is known’ (Leaman Citation2000, p. 19).
31 See Hourani Citation1986, p. 136.
32 For this discussion, see Adamson Citation2014, p. 125.
33 See Adamson Citation2014, p. 125.