Al-Khayrabadi's Ladder to Logic

Musa Furber (translation)
Paperback
9781944904210

Al-Mirqat fi 'ilm al-mantiq

This is an English translation of Fadl Imam al-Khayrabad's introduction to the science of logic titled Al-Mirqat fi al-mantiq, along with its Arabic text.

Fadl Imam al-Khayrаbadi (d. 1243 AH/c. 1828 CE) was an early 19th-century Indian scholar unrivalled among his contemporaries in logic and philosophy. He devoted himself entirely to teaching, writing, and advancing these disciplines, leaving behind a small but influential body of work. His Ladder to Logic (Al-Mirqat) is a standard part of the Subcontinent's Dars-e-Nizami curriculum, and is also read at institutions in North America, the United Kingdom, and South Africa that follow that tradition.

Composed in the Avicennan tradition, the text offers a rigorous yet compact treatment of classical Arabic logic: from conception and assent, through propositions and their modalities, to the four syllogistic figures, composite arguments, reductio ad absurdum, and the five crafts of reasoning -- demonstrative, dialectical, rhetorical, poetic, and sophistic -- closing with supplementary remarks on the nature of the sciences and the Eight Headings of the ancients.

This edition is directed at students of the Islamic sciences reading with an instructor or with access to the Arabic commentarial tradition. Translation choices throughout favour bilingual reading, making the edition equally suited to those approaching the text in both languages.