Although this concept already existed that for the notion of punishments the term Hadd (pl.Hudood) is very feebly defined in Islamic Law. But to point out a deficiency in anything is much easier than to tell why this deficiency occurs and how should it be overcome? According to the beliefs of Abrahamic religions, God is the King of this world and it is agreed principle of English as well as Arabic language that words of King always considered correct and (...) pure and always prevail over the words of a layman. In this research on the basis of opinions of Islamic scholars and in the light of the verses of Quraan i.e words of God, it has been proved that existing concept of the term Hadd (pl.Hudood) is not based on the words of King of this world i.e God but on the words of human being and the term Hadd (pl.Hudood) should not be used as any connection with punishments in Islamic Criminal Law because the King of this world didn't reveal the term Hadd (pl.Hudood) in any sense of punishments like whipping, stoning to death and amputation. The next question arises that if this idea is correct then in which sense the King of this world revealed the term Hadd (pl.Hudood) in Quraan? That's why in the next step an attempt has been made as to what could be possible definition of the term Hadd (pl.Hudood) if this term is to be used in Islamic Law and it was found that in the words of King of this world the term Hadd (pl.Hudood) should not be used in Criminal Law but in Civil Law. The derived definition has been termed as Quraanic definition of Hadd (pl.Hudood). (shrink)

[OPEN ACCESS TARGET ARTICLE WITH COMMENTARIES AND RESPONSE] We develop a new model of how human agency-detection capacities and other socio-cognitive biases are involved in forming religious beliefs. Crucially, we distinguish general religious beliefs (such as *God exists*) from personal religious beliefs that directly refer to the agent holding the belief or to her peripersonal time and space (such as *God appeared to _me_ last night*). On our model, people acquire general religious beliefs mostly from their surrounding culture; however, people (...) use agency-intuitions and other low-level experiences to form personal religious beliefs. We call our model the Interactive Religious Experience Model (IREM). IREM inverts received versions of Hyperactive Agency-Detection Device Theory (HADD Theory): instead of saying that agency-intuitions are major causes of religious belief in general, IREM says that general belief in supernatural agents causes people to seek situations that trigger agency-intuitions and other experiences, since these enable one to form personal beliefs about those agents. In addition to developing this model, we (1) present empirical and conceptual difficulties with received versions of HADD Theory, (2) explain how IREM incorporates philosophical work on indexical belief, (3) relate IREM to existing anthropological and psychological research, and (4) propose future empirical research programs based on IREM. (shrink)

«Hva er det vi egentlig mener når vi sier, mennesket er dødelig?» spør Woody Allen i boken The Insanity Defence. Han legger til: «Det er åpenbart ikke et kompliment.»1 Jeg tror Woody tar feil her. Vår dødelighet er et kompliment – eller i det minste av det gode – siden livet uten døden ville være katastrofalt. Udødelige liv fører til dyp kjedsomhet, eksistensiell angst og en radikal form for verdinihilistisk tilværelse. Grunnen er at udødeligheten gjør at vi en gang i (...) fremtiden må konfronteres med de radikalt livsfiendtlige stadiene av universets historie. Jeg argumenterer for at dette er en skjebne langt verre enn døden. Konklusjonen blir derfor, med et nikk til Voltaire, at om døden ikke hadde eksistert, hadde vi vært nødt til å finne den opp. (shrink)

The passionate and staunch defence of logic of the controversial thinker Ibn Ḥazm, Abū Muḥammad ʿAlī b. Aḥmad b. Saʿīd of Córdoba (384-456/994-1064), had lasting consequences in the Islamic world. Indeed, his book Facilitating the Understanding of the Rules of Logic and Introduction Thereto, with Common Expressions and Juristic Examples (Kitāb al-Taqrīb li-ḥadd al-manṭiq wa-l-mudkhal ilayhi bi-l-alfāẓ al-ʿāmmiyya wa-l-amthila al-fiqhiyya), composed in 1025-1029, was well known and discussed during and after his time; and it paved the way for the studies (...) of his compatriots Ibn Bājjah (d. 1138), Ibn Ṭufayl (1185), and Ibn Rushd (1198), who each gave demonstrative reasoning a privileged place within the methods of attaining knowledge. Unfortunately, as too often in the history of science, Ibn Ḥazm’s innovative perspectives and contributions in logic have been overlooked or considered with an attitude of contempt. On the one hand, his work has been seen, at best, as promulgating the benefits of studying Aristotle’s logic, so that his contribution is assessed as more didactical than conceptual. And on the other hand, those who do examine his innovations often consider them to be mistaken. As indicated by Chejne (1984, p. 2) contempt towards the logical work of Ibn Ḥazm was also present in its reception by the Eastern philosophers who accused him of deviating from Aristotelian logic and of dabbling in things beyond his capability. However, a reassessment of his work on logic has since begun, by delving into the ways the thinker of Córdoba studied the links between deontic and modal qualification of propositions. In this context Lameer’s (2013) paper on the logical sources of Ibn Ḥazm is worth mentioning; the author (p. 417, footnote 1) observes that, although, strictly speaking, it was al-Fārābī who first drew the parallelism between deontic and modal concepts, it was Ibn Ḥazm who developed it and worked it out in a more precise manner. A primary aim of this paper is to help fill some of these gaps by stressing the role of the work of Ibn Ḥazm in developing a notion of deontic necessity deeply rooted in legal normativity, and in explicitly discussing the transference between deontic and modal concepts. According to our view; the basic units of Islamic deontic logic are what we might call, indulging in terminological anachronism, heteronomous imperatives. As it turns out, the heteronomy of imperatives within Islamic legal systems contrasts with those of the purely moral realm, which seem to be closer to an autonomous conception of moral law. There it concurs again with Leibniz’s proposal to define obligatory as “what is necessary for a good person to do”. In the present paper, we will focus on the heteronomous imperatives of legal systems rather than on the imperatives of the purely moral realm. In this context, the work of Ibn Ḥazm extends the parallelism between the necessity of events and that of human actions stressed by his predecessors. According to our understanding, Ibn Ḥazm’s parallelism can be rendered explicit formally by means of a conditional (or hypothetical) structure shared by both deontic and modal propositions. Moreover, this structure makes apparent that this parallelism displays an underlying system of “degrees”. Indeed, while in the domain of events, given some conditions, it makes sense to distinguish between an event that is more likely to happen than another. Ibn Ḥazm speaks of near and distant possibility (such as the higher degree of likelihood of rain, given the condensation of clouds in December, and its lower degree, when the condensation occurs in summer); and, in the domain of actions, the Islamic notion of weighting actions determines degrees of virtue (or of legal and moral value). So whereas the degree of virtue of performing a forbidden act as determined by the distribution of sanction and reward is 0, we obtain the same value by pondering the likelihood of an impossible event to take place. Furthermore, as discussed in section II.3.2, the system of values at work in the parallelism can be seen as opening the way to a more direct correspondence. Thus, while in the realm of nature, likelihood of occurrence of an event is dependent upon the conditions specific to the occurrence of that event; while, in the realm of jurisprudence, likelihood of performing an action is dependent upon the distribution of reward and sanction specific to that action (being that, given the choice to perform or not perform a given action, those that will be rewarded are more likely to be performed than those that are not). According to this perspective, the point of the parallelism is that both deontic and modal qualifications measure the degree of an action or event to become actual; that is – indulging once more in anachronism (but this time from the Leibnizian background) – the degree measures how feasible (facile) an action or event may be. This suggests that Ibn Ḥazm’s perspectives already herald the links to probability and possibility explored by Leibniz six centuries later – see for example Leibniz’s (1671, A VI, I, p. 424-26) use of probability in the context of conditional right. Nevertheless, it also shows a crucial difference to the approach developed in the Elementa Jura Naturalis: whereas Leibniz’s studies seek to define what is to be just or virtuous, the logical system of deontic imperatives within Islamic jurisprudence presupposes that what is to be virtuous has already been settled. Determining what is to be virtuous is not achieved by logical reasoning within the system of legal jurisprudence, but by delving into the higher objectives of the Sharīʿa. While developing our point, we will delve into the logical structure of the heteronomous imperatives. This distinguishes our contribution from the existing literature, such as the papers of Chejne (1984), Lameer (2014), and Guerrero (1997, 2010, 2014), which do not provide a logical analysis of the deontic concepts put into work by Ibn Ḥazm. The true antecedent to the present paper is the work of Farid Zidani (2007, 2015), who, so far as we know, was the first to undertake such a task. Some of our own developments and general epistemological thoughts go beyond Ibn Ḥazm’s framework and motivations; mainly those contained in sections II.3.2 and IV. However, according to our view, these reflections suggest that Ibn Ḥazm’s approach has the substance for a broader and deeper exploration of the logic of norms. The paper is structured as follows:I.Ibn Ḥazm’s Logic of Heteronomous Imperatives. After presenting some extracts of the relevant text, we proceed by providing a formal reconstruction of the five forms of deontic modalities. II. A Landmark in the History of the Logical Analysis of Norms. Duties and Modalities. In this section, we study the transferences from deontic to modal necessity and possibility. We briefly compare the deontic system of Islamic Jurisprudence with that of Leibniz.III. Leibniz and Hypothetical Imperatives in Law.IV. Beyond Ibn Ḥazm: Conclusions and the Work Ahead. We will conclude the paper by discussing briefly some conceptual points that distinguish the logic of heteronomous imperatives from contemporary deontic logic. Our final words will discuss deontic-modal parallelism in the context of Ibn Ḥazm’s rejection of reasoning by conjecture and what we call “the internalization of nature.”. (shrink)

Dâwûd al-Qarisî (Dâvûd al-Karsî) was a versatile and prolific 18th century Ottoman scholar who studied in İstanbul and Egypt and then taught for long years in various centers of learning like Egypt, Cyprus, Karaman, and İstanbul. He held high esteem for Mehmed Efendi of Birgi (Imâm Birgivî/Birgili, d.1573), out of respect for whom, towards the end of his life, Karsî, like Birgivî, 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 (hadith): Sharḥu uṣûli’l-ḥadîth li’l-Birgivî; Sharḥu’l-Ḳaṣîdati’n-nûniyya (two commentaries, in Arabic and Turkish); Şarḥu’l-Emsileti’l-mukhtalifa fi’ṣ-ṣarf (two commentaries, in Arabic and Turkish); Sharḥu’l-Binâʾ; Sharḥu’l-ʿAvâmil; and Sharḥu İzhâri’l-asrâr, Karsî 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 Karsî 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 (with scattered manuscript copies of his works and incomplete catalogue entries). This article primarily and in a long research based on manuscript copies and bibliographic sources, identifies twelve works on logic that Karsî 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-Kâtibî’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 Sharhu Îsâghûcî, which constitutes an important and assertive ring in the tradition of commentaries on Îsâghûcî. We describe in detail the nine manuscript copies of this work that have been identified in various libraries. The critical text of Karsî’s Sharhu Îsâghûcî, whose composition was finished on 5 March 1745, has been prepared based on the following four manuscripts: (1) MS Kayseri Raşid Efendi Kütüphanesi, No. 857, ff.1v-3v, dated 1746, that is, only one year after the composition of the work; (2) MS Bursa İnebey Yazma Eser Kütüphanesi, Genel, No.794B, ff.96v-114v, dated 1755; (3) MS Millet Kütüphanesi, Ali Emiri Efendi Arapça, No. 1752, ff.48v-58r, dated 1760; (4) MS Beyazıt Yazma Eser Kütüphanesi, Beyazıt, No. 3129, ff.41v-55v, dated 8 March 1772. While preparing the critical text, we have applied the Center for Islamic Studies (İslam Araştırmaları Merkezi, İSAM)’s method of optional text choice. The critical text is preceded by a content analysis. Karsî is well aware of the preceding tradition of commentary on Îsâghûcî, 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. Karsî’s statement “the commentary in one day and one night” is a reference to Mollâ Fanârî who had stated that he started writing his commentary in the morning and finished it by the evening. Karsî, 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 b. Yûsuf al-Sanûsî (d.1490), the great representative of this logical school in the Egyptian-Maghrib region. Where there is divergence between the views of the ‘earlier scholars’ (mutaqaddimûn) like Ibn Sînâ and his followers and the ‘later scholars’ (muta’akhkhirûn), i.e., post-Fakhr al-dîn al-Râzî logicians, Karsî 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-Fârâbî, 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 mutaqaddimûn’s notion of ‘second intelligibles’ with the muta’akhkhirûn’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.’ Karsî asserts that established and commonly used metaphors have, according to the verifying scholars, signification by correspondence (dalâlat al-mutâbaqah), adding also that it should not be ignored that such metaphors may change from society to society and from time to time. Karsî also endorses the earlier scholars’ position concerning the impossibility of quiddity (mâhiyya) 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 (muhaqqîqûn), it is possible to make definition (hadd) by mentioning only difference (fasl), in which case it becomes an imperfect definition (hadd nâqis). He is of the opinion that the definition of the proposition (qadiyya) in al-Taftâzânî’s Tahdhîb 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 (mawdû‘) in categorical propositions, and the temporal aspect of the antecedent (muqaddam) in hypothetical propositions. As for the unquantified, indefinite proposition (qadiyya muhmalah), Karsî assumes that if it is not about the problems of the sciences, then it is virtually/potentially a particular proposition (qadiyya juz’iyyah); but if it is about the problems of the sciences, then it is virtually/potentially a universal proposition (qadiyya kulliyyah). This being the general rule about the ambiguous (muhmal) propositions, he nevertheless contends that, because its subject (mawdû‘) is negated, it is preferable to consider a negative ambiguous (sâliba muhmalah) proposition like “human (insân) is not standing” to be a virtually/potentially universal negative (sâliba kulliyyâh) proposition. He states that a disjunctive hypothetical proposition (shartiyya al-munfasila) 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 (qiyâs), according to Karsî, is the ultimate purpose (al-maqsad al-aqsâ) 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 Karsî clearly reveals how much the ‘demonstration (burhân)-centered’ approach of the founding figures of the Muslim tradition of logic like al-Fârâbî and Ibn Sînâ has changed. al-Abharî, in his Îsâghûjî makes no mention of ‘conversion by contradiction’ (‘aks al-naqîd). Therefore, Karsî, too, in his commentary, does not touch upon the issue. However, in his Îsâghûjî al-jadîd Karsî does handle the conversion by contradiction and its rules. Following the method of Îsâghûjî, in his commentary Karsî shortly touches on the four figures (shakl) of conjuctive syllogism (qiyâs iqtirânî) and their conditions, after which he passes to the first figure (shakl), which is considered ‘the balance of the sciences’ (mi‘yâr al-‘ulûm), explaining the four moods (darb) of it. In his Îsâghûjî al-jadîd, however, Karsî handles all the four figures (shakl) with all their related moods (darb), where he speaks of fife moods (darb) of the fourth figure (shakl). The topic of ‘modal propositions’ (al-muwajjahât) and of ‘modal syllogism’ (al-mukhtalitât), both of which do not take place in the Îsâghûjî, are not mentioned by Karsî as well, either in his commentary on Îsâghûjî or in his Îsâghûjî al-jadîd. Karsî proposes that the certainties (yaqîniyyât), of which demonstration (burhân) is made, have seven, not six, divisions. After mentioning (1) axioms/first principles (awwaliyyât), (2) observata/sensuals (mushâhadât), (3) experta/empiricals (mujarrabât), (4) acumenalia (hadthiyyât), (5) testata (mutawâtirât), and (6) instictives (fitriyyât), that is, all the ‘propositions accompanied by their demonstrations,’ Karsî states that these six divisions, which do not need research and reflection (nazar), are called badîhiyyât (self-evidents), and constitute the foundations (usûl) of certainties (yaqîniyyât). As the seventh division he mentions (7) the nazariyyât (theoreticals), which are known via the badîhiyyât, end up in them, and therefore convey certainty (yaqîn). For Karsî, the nazariyyât/theoreticals, which constitute the seventh division of yaqîniyyât/certainties, are too numerous, and constitute the branches (far‘) of yaqîniyyât. Every time the concept of ‘Mughâlata’ (sophistry) comes forth in the traditional sections on the five arts usually appended to logic works, Karsî often gives examples from what he sees as extreme sûfî 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 (ahl al-haqq), shârî‘â-observant (mutasharri‘) leading sufis who have reached to the highest level of karâmah. (shrink)