∴ Mantiq for ʿAqīda Final exam

Final exam · The whole course, then real ʿaqīda arguments

Part A checks the whole course quickly. Part B is the real test: taking apart arguments of the kind you will meet in books of ʿaqīda. Answer everything before opening the key. Aim for 80%.

Part A · Quick questions

  1. Define logic. What does "when heeded" add?
  2. Taṣawwur or taṣdīq: a) "the Speech of Allah" b) "Allah speaks", when you assent to it?
  3. Name the four states of the mind towards a statement. Which are assent?
  4. Why is jahl murakkab worse than jahl basīṭ?
  5. Ḍarūrī or naẓarī: a) "Two contradictories cannot both be true." b) "The world is originated."
  6. "Al-Raḥīm" points to mercy alone: which verbal dalāla?
  7. Is ṣalāh a mushtarak, manqūl or murtajal word? Why must the type be fixed before a proof?
  8. Which kind of opposition is "seeing / blind"? Can both be denied of one thing?
  9. Is "partner of the Creator" a universal? Why?
  10. What relation is there between "prophet" and "messenger", and between their contradictories?
  11. Give the species, proximate genus and differentia of "human".
  12. Khāṣṣa or ʿaraḍ ʿāmm: "capable of writing" for human?
  13. Why does sharing the name "knowing" not mean Allah and a human share a reality?
  14. Is a Qurʾānic command a proposition? Is a Qurʾānic report?
  15. What is the negative of "If the sun is up, it is day"?
  16. Contradictory and converse of "No idol creates".
  17. Name the minor, middle and major terms in "Every prophet is human; every human is mortal; ∴ every prophet is mortal".
  18. What are the two conditions of Figure 1?
  19. Which two moves with a muttaṣila are valid, and which two are fallacies?
  20. When does an analogy give certainty?

Part B · Take these arguments apart

For each: say what kind of argument it is (iqtirānī, istithnāʾī, compound, khalf, induction, analogy, enthymeme); if it is an iqtirānī, give the figure and mood; say whether it is valid; and say which premise carries the real weight, or where it goes wrong.

  1. "The world is changing, and everything changing is originated. So the world is originated."
  2. "Every originated thing has a cause. The world is originated. So the world has a cause."
  3. "Or were they created by nothing, or are they the creators [of themselves]?" (al-Ṭūr 52:35)
  4. "Had there been within them gods besides Allah, they would both have been ruined." (al-Anbiyāʾ 21:22)
  5. "Is He who creates like one who does not create?" (al-Naḥl 16:17)
  6. "They both used to eat food." (al-Māʾida 5:75, said of the Messiah and his mother)
  7. "Allah is All-Hearing. Whatever hears has ears. So Allah has ears."
  8. "Some Muslims are Arabs. Some Arabs are poets. So some Muslims are poets."
  9. "Every bidʿa is misguidance. Building madrasas with classrooms is a bidʿa. So building them is misguidance."
  10. "O mankind! Worship your Lord, who created you and those before you." (al-Baqara 2:21)
  11. "I have met many scholars of kalām and all of them were Ashʿarīs. So every mutakallim is an Ashʿarī."
  12. "If he is a true prophet, he performs miracles. He performs miracles. So he is a true prophet."
Show answers: Part A
  1. A canonical tool which, when heeded, protects the mind from error in thought. "When heeded": knowing the rules is not enough; they must be applied.
  2. a) taṣawwur · b) taṣdīq
  3. Yaqīn, ẓann, wahm, shakk. Only yaqīn and ẓann are assent.
  4. The person does not know, and does not know that he does not know; he thinks he knows, so he feels no need to learn.
  5. a) ḍarūrī · b) naẓarī
  6. Taḍammun (part of the full meaning: the Essence together with mercy).
  7. Manqūl (sharʿī). In a proof, a word must keep one meaning in every premise; a manqūl or mushtarak word can slide between meanings.
  8. Possession and privation. Yes, of what is not fit to see (a wall).
  9. Yes: nothing in the concept itself limits it to one; that it has no possible instance is proven separately.
  10. Prophet > messenger (every messenger is a prophet, not every prophet a messenger); non-prophet < non-messenger.
  11. Human; animal; rational.
  12. Khāṣṣa (only humans write, though not every human does).
  13. The shared word is a universal concept, which exists only in the mind. Outside the mind each one's knowledge is particular to its owner and befits him.
  14. A command is inshāʾ, not a proposition. A report is a proposition (true with certainty because of who said it).
  15. "It is not the case that if the sun is up, it is day."
  16. Contradictory: "Some idol creates." Converse: "No creator is an idol."
  17. Minor: prophet. Middle: human. Major: mortal.
  18. The minor premise affirmative; the major premise universal.
  19. Valid: affirming the antecedent, denying the consequent. Fallacies: affirming the consequent, denying the antecedent.
  20. When the common factor is proven to be the complete cause of the ruling and is present in the new case. Then it becomes a syllogism with the cause as the middle term.
Show answers: Part B
  1. Iqtirānī, Figure 1, mood 1 (the minor, "the world is changing", is singular and counts as universal). Valid. The weight is on the major premise, "everything changing is originated", which the theologians had to prove.
  2. Iqtirānī, Figure 1, mood 1, spoken with the major premise first. Valid. The weight is on both premises: (1) is close to an axiom (nothing originated originates itself); (2) is the conclusion of argument 1. Together, 1 and 2 form a compound (mafṣūl) syllogism.
  3. Sabr wa taqsīm (istithnāʾī with a disjunction): created by nothing, or by themselves, or by a Creator. The first two are denied, so the third is established. Valid; the weight is on the disjunction being complete and on the two denials, which are close to axioms.
  4. Istithnāʾī, denying the consequent: "but they are not ruined; ∴ there are no other gods". Valid. The weight is on the conditional (why more than one god would bring ruin), which the theologians supported with the khalf argument of mutual hindrance.
  5. Enthymeme of a Figure 2 syllogism, mood 1: "Allah creates; none of the idols creates; ∴ Allah is not like them." Valid.
  6. Enthymeme of a compound Figure 1 chain: "They ate food; whoever eats food is in need; ∴ they were in need" (mood 1); "they were in need; nothing in need is a god; ∴ they were not gods" (mood 2). Valid; the premises are near-axiomatic.
  7. Iqtirānī, Figure 1, mood 1. The form is valid, but the major premise is false as a universal claim: it is an incomplete induction from created hearers, and it treats "hearing" as if it were univocal across Creator and creation. Shared names do not mean shared realities, so the argument fails in its matter, not its form.
  8. Invalid: two particular premises (rule 3), and in any case the middle term is the predicate of one and the subject of the other with nothing universal to connect them. The conclusion may be true, but it does not follow.
  9. Iqtirānī, Figure 1, mood 1 in form, but it may break rule 1: if "bidʿa" means the sharʿī sense in the major ("every bidʿa is misguidance") and the linguistic sense in the minor ("building madrasas is new"), the middle term is not repeated with the same meaning. The argument stands or falls on whether the minor premise is true in the sharʿī sense.
  10. Enthymeme of Figure 1, mood 1: "Your Lord is the One who created you; whoever created you deserves worship; ∴ your Lord deserves worship." The middle term is "the One who created you": the reason for the command.
  11. Incomplete induction by bare counting: only probability, and it is in fact false (there are Māturīdī, Muʿtazilī and other mutakallimūn). One counterexample destroys it.
  12. Istithnāʾī, affirming the consequent: a fallacy. Miracle-like wonders alone do not settle it unless the conditional also runs the other way. (The theologians' actual argument is that a miracle joined to a claim of prophethood is Allah's confirmation of the claim, which is a different conditional: "if someone claims prophethood and Allah produces a miracle at his hand as a challenge, he is truthful". With that conditional, affirming the antecedent is valid.)