The Origin and Scope of Ādabu al-Baḥth wa al-Munāẓara (14th-20th c.)

Abstract

Ādāb al-Baḥth wa al-Munāẓara (ABM) is a subtopic of the tradition of Islamic logic and a method of investigation based on the application of dialectic. In this article, we investigated the origin of ABM and gave a list of works on ABM between the 14th-20th centuries. The problem with the article is what the ancestry of ABM is and how volumes of work on ABM are. The dialectic is a branch of Aristotelian logic. Aristotle committed to paper the dialectic as a book. After Aristotle, in the tradition of Islamic logic, the dialectic has taken place in books of Islamic logic as well as works on al-kalam and fiqh. For instance, al-Baghdādī wrote Iʿyār al-Nażar fī ʿIlm al-Jadal in al-kalām, and in al-fiqh, al-Dabūsī devoted a chapter for dialectic in his Taqwīm al-Adilla. Islamic theologians (mutakallimūn) held the Aristotelian dialectic as speculation (naẓar) by paraphrasing it. Otherwise, Islamic canonists held the Aristotelian dialectic as a chapter named by the divergences of legal opinions (khilāf). In this context, naẓar, and khilāf are distinct in their aim from the Aristotelian dialectic. Their common aim is to demonstrate a true proposition validly (taḥqīq). However, in the literature of post-Avicennian Islamic logic, the dialectic and its application are not a chapter of Islamic logic opuses but chapters of al-kalām and fiqh. These opuses have just included certain explanations about the information value of dialectical premises. In this context, ABM means returning dialectic to Islamic logic papers in a new formation. Briefly, ABM is the latest form of Aristotelian dialectic in Islamic logic. The list of works on ABM was obtained by searching ISAM and YEK manuscript databases and books of biographical sketches (tarājim) and literary history (ṭabāqāt). In this regard, there are two hundred ninety-one works on ABM and there are two hundred seventeen authors. The most prolific scholar on ādāb is Jār Allāh Valī al-Dīn b. Muṣṭafā b. ʿAlī al-Isṭanbūlī Abū ʿAbd Allāh. After Samarqandī, some texts on ādāb have been popular, especially in Ottoman academic areas like madrasas. For example, Aḋud al-Dīn al-Ījī’s one page concise text, Ḥusayn al-Adanavī’s Ḥusayniyya, Birgivī Mehmed Efendi’s one page concise text, Ṭashkoprilīzāda’s ādāb epistle, Sajaklizāda’s Waladiyya. The number of commentaries and supercommentaries on these texts is more than one hundred. In the article, I aim to present a list of works on ABM for assisting in the academic investigation of ABM and to determine its origin.

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