Abstract
This chapter presents, in an exploratory fashion, the history of Arabo-Islamic logic in India1 between the tenth/sixteenth and fourteenth/twentieth centuries, with special focus on the formation of the Khayrabadï School in this discipline. Given its exploratory nature, the chapter does not promote any thesis that elaborates on the causes behind historical developments; however, it does point out that the study of logic passed through India in four distinct stages via Multan, Delhi, Lahore, the Awadh (generally), and Tonk. The aim of the chapter is simply to chart the trajectory of the scholars and works associated with logical studies in the specified period and region, so as to lay the groundwork for further technical research in Arabo-Islamic logical texts of the subcontinent.
taqdīm be ostād-e ‘azīz
—Hossein Modarressi
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Notes
For details, see Sayyid Manāzir Ahsan Gīlānī, Pāk o hind mein musalmānōn kā nizām-i taʿlīm o tarbiyat (Lahore: Maktaba-yi Rahmāniyya, n.d.), 141–50 and the sources cited there. In its basic form, this curriculum is very similar to the elementary-intermediate levels until the fifth/eleventh century, as described by George Makdisi, Ibn Aqīl: Religion and Culture in Classical Islam (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1997), 20–21. Hadîth is conspicuously missing from the details of the Indian curriculum at this stage.
Malik attributes this and other reforms ultimately to administrative exigencies. Jamal Malik, Islamische Gelehrtenkultur in Nordindien (Leiden: Brill, 1997), 78ff.
Malik, Islamische Gelehrtenkultur, 78–79. This may be a problematic claim, as Yazdī died more than half a century after ‘Abdallāh al-Tulanbī. Perhaps he taught ‘ʿAzīzallāh Tulanbī. Yazdīʾs death date is also reported as 1050/1640 (See Akhtar Rāhī, Tadhkira-yi musannifīn-i dars-i nizāmī [Lahore: Maktaba-yi Rahmāniyya, 1978], 160). Yazdī is also the author of a supergloss on Jurjānīʾs gloss on Tahtānīʾs commentary on the Shamsiyya. See also EI3, s.v. “‘Abdallāh Tulanbī” (Renate Würsch).
Mahmūd b. Abī Bakr Sirāj al-Dīn al-Urmawī was a Shāfiʿī and a scholar of jurisprudence, philosophy, and logic. He studied in Mosul and lived in Damascus and his Matāliʿ al-anwār is widely studied and much commented upon. According to Rescher, he was either a pupil or an associate of the logician Khūnajī. He died in 682/1283 or 692/1293. See Khayr al-Dīn Ziriklī, al-Aʿlām (Beirut: Dār al-‘Ilm li-ʿl-Malayīn, 1980), 7:166. Nicholas Rescher, The Development of Arabic Logic (Pittsburgh, PA: University of Pittsburgh, 1964), 195.
Malik, Islamische Gelehrtenkultur, 79. Reza Pourjavady, “A Shīʿī Theologian and Philosopher of Early Safavid Iran: Najm al-Dīn Hājjī Mahmūd al-Nayrīzī and His Writings” (PhD thesis, Free University of Berlin, 2008), 13, does not mention these scholars as Dawānī’s students.
On Ghiyāth al-Dīn, see Seyyed Hossein Nasr, Islamic Philosophy from Its Origin to the Present (New York: State University of New York Press, 2006), 199ff.; and Pourjavady, “Shī‘ī Theologian,” 19ff.
For details and circumstances of his appointments in Bījāpūr and then at Akbar’s court and of his social and intellectual links, see Gīlānī, Nizām, 197ff., and Saiyid Athar Abbas Rizvi, A Socio-Intellectual History of the Isnā Ashari Shī’īs [sic] in India (Canberra: Ma’rifat [sic] Publishing House, 1986), 1:222ff. Fathallah is said to have included the works of Dawānī, Ghiyāth al-Dīn Mansūr, and Mīrzā Jān into his teaching circle. See ‘Abd al-Hayy b. Fakhr al-Dīn al-Hasanī al-Lakhnawī, Nuzhat al-khawātir (Multān: Idārat-i Ta’līfāt-i Ashrafiyya, 1991), 4:226. Malik, Islamische Gelehrtenkultur, 86–95. Pourjavady, “Shī‘ī Theologian,” 19 note 144, mentions him as a member of Ghiyāth al-Dīn’s family. Here he also mentions that a manuscript of the Shifā’ of Avicenna, once possessed by Sadr al-Dīn, was eventually inherited by Fathallāh, who brought it to India. It is now found in the Reza library of Rampur.
Gīlānī, Nizām, 199, 202. That Fathallāh promoted the study of Dawānī is generally accepted, but the claim that he also introduced the works of Mullā Sadrā is problematic. The latter was a philosopher of the nēxt genēration. Likewise, at least as far as the study of logic is concernēd, Robinson’s idea that the study of Dawānī led to an interest in Mīr Bāqir Dāmād and Mullā Sadrā also nēeds reconsideration. The Khayrābādīs, who owe quite a bit to the Fathallāh lineage, are extremely critical of both Mīr Bāqir and Mullā Sadrā on matters logical and are often in line with Dawānī’s thinking, as represented by commentators. In fact the only work of Mullā Sadrā that came to be included in the curricula and was heavily commented upon in India was his commentary on Abharī’s philosophical work Hidāyat al-hikma, Here Rahman’s observation that Dawānī is often the target of Mullā Sadrā in his Asfār may be worthy of attention. The question of the influence of Mullā Sadrā on the rationalist tradition of South Asia requires serious study. See Robinson, Ulama, 13–14, 42–43; Fazlur Rahman, The Philosophy of Mulla Sadra (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1975), 8.
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© 2013 Michael Cook, Najam Haider, Intisar Rabb, and Asma Sayeed
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Ahmed, A.Q. (2013). Logic in the Khayrābādī School of India: A Preliminary Exploration. In: Cook, M., Haider, N., Rabb, I., Sayeed, A. (eds) Law and Tradition in Classical Islamic Thought. Palgrave Series in Islamic Theology, Law, and History. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137078957_12
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