Abstract

: Living in the 18th century, a prolific era of Ottoman logic studies, Dāwūd al-Qārisī was a prominent scholar and logician who excelled in studies of Arabic Linguistics, Kalām, Hadith and Logic. Known as having a particular interest in Imam Birgivī and his teaching, and serving as an instructor after living in Cairo and inheriting the scientific tradition of Egypt and the Maghrib, al-Qārisī’s brilliancy in logic can be seen when his works on logic are examined. In this study, we prepare the critical text edition of al-Qārisī’s Commentary on al-Abharī’s short but famous treatise Īsāghūjī. The edition also includes reviewing and assessment of the work. After giving information about the life and works of al-Qārisī, we introduce and describe twelve works of logic authored by him which have not been previously identified or deeply studied. We have identified that al-Qārisī authored two other commentaries, one on Najm al-dīn al-Kātibī’s famous al-Shamsiyya, the other on Sa‘d al-Dīn al-Taftāzānī’s Tahdhīb al-Mantıq wa al-Kalām. He also authored al-Īsāghūjī al-jadīd as an alternative for Īsāghūjī. After giving information about all identified copies of the edited work, we present al-Qārisī’s original ideas, critics and contributions to logic issues against such prominent logicians and commentators as Muḥammad ibn Ḥamza al-Fanārī and Ḥusām al-dīn Ḥasan al-Kātī. Summary: Dāwūd al-Qārisī was a versatile and prolific 18th century Ottoman scholar who studied in Istanbul and Egypt and then taught for long years in various centers of learning like Egypt, Cyprus, Karaman, and Istanbul. He held high esteem for Mehmed Efendi of Birgi, out of respect for whom, towards the end of his life, al-Qārisī, like Birgivī, occupied himself with teaching in the town of Birgi, where he died in 1756 and was buried next to Birgivî Better known for his following works on Arabic language and rhetoric and on the prophetic traditions : Sharḥ uṣūl al-ḥadīth li’l-Birgivī; Sharḥ Ḳaṣīdat al-nūniyya ; Şarḥ Amsilat al-mukhtalifa fi al-ṣarf ; Sharḥ Bināʾ; Sharḥ ʿAvāmil; and Sharḥ Izhār al-asrār, al-Qārisī has actually composed textbooks in quite different fields. Hence the hundreds of manuscript copies of his works in world libraries. Many of his works were also recurrently printed in the Ottoman period. One of the neglected aspects of al-Qārisī is his identity as a logician. Although he authored ambitious and potent works in the field of logic, this aspect of him has not been subject to modern studies. Even his bibliography has not been established so far. This article primarily and in a long research based on manuscript copies and bibliographic sources, identifies twelve works on logic that al-Qārisī has authored. We have clarified the works that are frequently mistaken for each other, and, especially, have definitively established his authorship of a voluminous commentary on al-Kātibī’s al-Shamsiyya, of which commentary a second manuscript copy has been identified and described together with the other copy. Next is handled his most famous work of logic, the Sharh al-Isāghūjī, which constitutes an important and assertive ring in the tradition of commentaries on Isāghūjī. We describe in detail the nine manuscript copies of this work that have been identified in various libraries. The critical text of al-Qārisī’s Sharh al-Isāghūjī, whose composition was finished on 5 March 1745, has been prepared based on the following four manuscripts: MS Kayseri Raşid Efendi Library, No. 857, ff.1v-3v, dated 1746, that is, only one year after the composition of the work; MS Bursa Inebey Yazma Eser Library, Genel, No.794B, ff.96v-114v, dated 1755; MS Millet Library, Ali Emiri Efendi Arapça, No. 1752, ff.48v-58r, dated 1760; MS Beyazıt Yazma Eser Library, Beyazıt, No. 3129, ff.41v-55v, dated 8 March 1772. While preparing the critical text, we have applied the Center for Islamic Studies ’s method of optional text choice. The critical text is preceded by a content analysis. al-Qārisī is well aware of the preceding tradition of commentary on Isāghūjī, and has composed his own commentary as a ‘simile’ or alternative to the commentary by Mollâ Fanârî which was famous and current in his own day. al-Qārisī’s statement “the commentary in one day and one night” is a reference to Mollā Fanārī who had stated that he started writing his commentary in the morning and finished it by the evening. al-Qārisī, who spent long years in the Egyptian scholarly and cultural basin, adopted the religious-sciences-centered ‘instrumentalist’ understanding of logic that was dominant in the Egypt-Maghrib region. Therefore, no matter how famous they were, he criticized those theoretical, long, and detailed works of logic which mingled with philosophy; and defended and favored authoring functional and cogent logic texts that were beneficial, in terms of religious sciences, to the seekers of knowledge and the scholars. Therefore, in a manner not frequently encountered in other texts of its kind, he refers to the writings and views of Muhammad ibn Yūsuf al-Sanūsī, the great representative of this logical school in the Egyptian-Maghrib region. Where there is divergence between the views of the ‘earlier scholars’ like Ibn Sînâ and his followers and the ‘later scholars’, i.e., post-Fakhr al-dīn al-Rāzī logicians, al-Qārisī is careful to distance himself from partisanship, preferring sometimes the views of the earliers, other times those of the laters. For instance, on the eight conditions proposed for the realization of contradiction, he finds truth to be with al-Fārābī, who proposed “unity in the predicative attribution” as the single condition for the realization of contradiction. Similarly, on the subject matter of Logic, he tried to reconcile the mutaqaddimūn’s notion of ‘second intelligibles’ with the muta’akhkhirūn’s notion of ‘apprehensional and declarational knowledge,’ suggesting that not much difference exists between the two, on the grounds that both notions are limited to the aspect of ‘known things that lead to the knowledge of unknown things.’ al-Qārisī asserts that established and commonly used metaphors have, according to the verifying scholars, signification by correspondence, adding also that it should not be ignored that such metaphors may change from society to society and from time to time. al-Qārisī also endorses the earlier scholars’ position concerning the impossibility of quiddity being composed of two co-extensive parts, and emphasizes that credit should not be given to later scholars’ position who see it possible. According to the verifying scholars, it is possible to make definition by mentioning only difference, in which case it becomes an imperfect definition. He is of the opinion that the definition of the proposition in al-Taftāzānī’s Tahdhīb is clearer and more complete: “a proposition is an expression that bears the possibility of being true or false”. He states that in the division of proposition according to quantity what is taken into consideration is the subject in categorical propositions, and the temporal aspect of the antecedent in hypothetical propositions. As for the unquantified, indefinite proposition, al-Qārisī assumes that if it is not about the problems of the sciences, then it is virtually/potentially a particular proposition ; but if it is about the problems of the sciences, then it is virtually/potentially a universal proposition. This being the general rule about the ambiguous propositions, he nevertheless contends that, because its subject is negated, it is preferable to consider a negative ambiguous proposition like “human is not standing” to be a virtually/potentially universal negative proposition. He states that a disjunctive hypothetical proposition that is composed of more than two parts/units is only seemingly so, and that in reality it cannot be composed of more than two units. Syllogism, according to al-Qārisī, is the ultimate purpose and the most valuable subject-matter of the science of Logic. For him, the entire range of topics that are handled before this one are only prolegomena to it. This approach of al-Qārisī clearly reveals how much the ‘demonstration -centered’ approach of the founding figures of the Muslim tradition of logic like al-Fārābī and Ibn Sīnā has changed. al-Abharî, in his Isāghūjī makes no mention of ‘conversion by contradiction’. Therefore, al-Qārisī, too, in his commentary, does not touch upon the issue. However, in his Isāghūjī al-jadīd al-Qārisī does handle the conversion by contradiction and its rules. Following the method of Isāghūjī, in his commentary al-Qārisī shortly touches on the four figures of conjuctive syllogism and their conditions, after which he passes to the first figure, which is considered ‘the balance of the sciences’, explaining the four moods of it. In his Isāghūjī al-jadīd, however, al-Qārisī handles all the four figures with all their related moods, where he speaks of fife moods of the fourth figure. The topic of ‘modal propositions’ and of ‘modal syllogism’, both of which do not take place in the Isāghūjī, are not mentioned by al-Qārisī as well, either in his commentary on Isāghūjī or in his Isāghūjī al-jadīd. al-Qārisī proposes that the certainties, of which demonstration is made, have seven, not six, divisions. After mentioning axioms/first principles, observata/sensuals, experta/empiricals, acumenalia, testata, and instictives, that is, all the ‘propositions accompanied by their demonstrations,’ al-Qārisī states that these six divisions, which do not need research and reflection, are called badīhiyyāt, and constitute the foundations of certainties. As the seventh division, he mentions the nazariyyāt, which are known via the badīhiyyāt, end up in them, and therefore convey certainty. For al-Qārisī, the nazariyyāt/theoreticals, which constitute the seventh division of yaqīniyyāt/certainties, are too numerous, and constitute the branches of yaqīniyyāt. Every time the concept of ‘Mughālata’ comes forth in the traditional sections on the five arts usually appended to logic works, al-Qārisī often gives examples from what he sees as extreme sūfī sayings, lamenting that these expressions are so widespread and held in esteem. He sometimes criticizes these expressions. However, it is observed that he does not reject tasawwuf in toto, but excludes from his criticism the mystical views and approaches of the truth-abiding, shārī‘ā-observant leading sufis who have reached to the highest level of karâmah.