ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Baghdādī’s Criticism of Aristotelian Logic

Abū Manṣūr ʿAbd al-Qāhir al-Baghdādī’s (d. ca. 1037–8 CE) recently edited and still little-known ʿIyār al-naẓar fī ʿilm al-jadal (The Touchstone of Inquiry in the Science of Dialectic) contains one of the earliest extant critiques of Aristotelian logic from the perspective of Islamic theology. This paper introduces al-Baghdādī’s arguments and examines their significance within the broader process of accommodating Greek logic in Islamic philosophy. The analysis of this treatise is particularly relevant in that it offers a rare glimpse into pre-Avicennan evaluations of Aristotelian logic, particularly since al-Baghdādī himself identifies his contemporaries at the time of composition as Yaḥyā b. ʿAdī (d. 974 CE) and al-ʿĀmirī (d. 992 CE). The paper further shows that al-Baghdādī already articulates several positions that would later gain prominence through al-Ghazālī (d. 1111 CE), and that he draws extensively on al-Fārābī’s (d. 950–1 CE) treatise on the various meanings of ‘intellect’ (ʿaql) to rebut the philosophers’ charge that Islamic theologians employ illicit equivocation in their arguments.