366 BOOK REVIEWS

E-mail: peter.adamson@kcl.ac.uk
doi:10.1093/jis/etr077
Published online 10 Septetnber 2011

Relational Syllogisms and the History of Arabic Logic, 900-1900

By KHALED EL-ROUAYHEB (Leiden: Brill, 2010), viii-|-295 pp. Price
HB $167.00. EAN 978-9004183193.

In historical surveys of Arabic philosophy, it is now commonplace to emphasize

that philosophical inquiry within Islamicate culture did not end with the death of
Ibn Rushd. It has also become something of a commonplace to bemoan the fact
anyone could ever have claimed that it did (and perhaps also that some people
still think so). What has only recently begun to take place, however, is something
far more useful, which is the attempt to lay out, meticulously and piece by piece,
something of the latter two-thirds of the history of philosophy under Islam.
The challenges are formidable, ranging from the generally sorry state of text
editions to a lack of basic knowledge when it comes to establishing intellectual
lineages—who taught what to whom, where, when, and on the basis of what
texts. Yet the attempt has to be made to tell some new stories, simply for the sake
of building interest in this time-period on the part of both historians and
philosophers. If madness consists in doing the same thing over and over again
while expecting a different result, then it must be deemed equally mad to recycle
endlessly, and on the basis of wholly insufficient evidence, the same shopworn
clichés about what philosophy was during the latter half of Islamic history—
'Illuminationist', say, or 'mere commentary'—while expecting inquiring minds to
take any great interest in the subject. (The essentialist assumptions inherent in
such proclamations are in fact a key part of the problem—they become an echo-
chamber that repels outsiders just as surely as they keep insiders self-satisfied
with what they have managed to suss out.) For new and exciting insights to
emerge, we need trail-blazers.
Khaled el-Rouayheb's new book fills this remit admirably. Focussing ruthlessly
on a single tightly defined problem within the lengthy history of Arabic logic—
whether relational inferences such as the so-called 'argument from equals' can be
said to fall under the rubric of syllogisms, and under what conditions or after
what modifications—el-Rouayheb bores into the interpretive history of this
question with a fierce intensity, leaving no stone unturned. In the process, he
amply demonstrates how sophisticated theoretical discussions swirled around for
centuries, with every conceivable position on the spectrum being taken up and
fleshed out at one time or another. (In caricature the main options are three:
either rework the propositions in order to make the argument fit the old
syllogistic straitjacket; or allow that syllogisms can take a different form from
what the Baghdad Peripatetics admitted; or drop the notion that only syllogisms
as traditionally defined count as formally productive inferences.) And in the very
act of bringing to light scores of figures both great (Fakhr al-DIn al-Râzî,
al-Àmidî, al-Khûnajî) and small (scholars too numerous to mention), and in
 BOOK REVIEWS 367
treating them all with equal care and clarity, el-Rouayheb shows himself to be a
sophisticated analyst of statements in logic in his own right. His discussion is
especially illuminating when it comes to developments in the late Ottoman
period—here, he has practically no rival, and certainly no-one who would have
offered anything of the depth encountered here.
All along, el-Rouayheb skilfully weaves a second story in with the first,
carried along by a series of pithy chapter headings: 'The challenge of Fakhr
al-DIn al-RâzI (d. 120) and its aftermath (1200-1350)', 'Epitomes, commehtaries
and glosses', 'The Christian-Arabic, North African, Indo-Muslim and Iranian
traditions of logic, 1600-1900'. These titles convey the essentials of Rouayheb's
take on what was characteristic of each phase in the development of Arabic logic:
but here and there, one finds him building a more substantial case for
reconceiving the periodization (as well as localization) of the history of Arabic
logic. In this respect, el-Rouayheb's research is peppered throughout with little
gems of information that are sure to prove useful to intellectual historians for
years to come. When he draws our attention to the continued interest in not only
al-Fârâbî's, but also Ibn Rushd's, logical works in Safavid Iran (pp. 146-8), for
instance, this alone raises substantial questions in relation to how scholars have
been used to drawing the lines of intellectual legacies within the Islamic lands. All
in all, el-Rouayheb's secondary story gives us some of the finest materials in the
book: it is almost a shame that it has to be read between the lines and that the
immensely useful flowchart which he has devised (p. 260) is presented almost as
an afterthought.
Will the book appeal to philosophers? By all rights it should. Historians of
logic, and logicians in general, are usually a reasonable bunch, by which I mean
to say that within their area of specialty they are not likely to be beholden to any
particular ideology when it comes to writing and rewriting the history of their
discipline. Show them something interesting and likely as not they are apt to
remark, 'Huh. That's interesting', then proceed to work on what they've been
given. In this respect, though, I must say that I wish el-Rouayheb had given us
just a bit more with which to work. It of course shows admirable prudence and
restraint to state outright, as el-Rouayheb does, that any meta-level inquiries and
speculations shall be set aside regarding what the examined philosophers'
positions on relational inferences might tell us, e.g., about their broader
epistemological or metaphysical commitments (p. 7). Yet in drawing the line
where he does, and in sticking so matter-of-factly to the task of explicating the
fate of the 'argument from equals', el-Rouayheb cannot help but give the
impression of a man keeping some cards to himself. Undoubtedly el-Rouayheb
has opinions on these more general matters, opinions that very likely will be at
least as informed as those of anyone working in the field today. He just won't be
drawn to elaborate on them, not in this connection, anyway. The result is a
volume that, for all its impeccable erudition and undeniable insight, still leaves
one hungry for more.
So I, for one, eagerly anticipate el-Rouayheb's next major contribution. His
own conclusions (pp. 255-9) point the way towards several further research
programmes. For now, this is a splendid opening statement in what one hopes
368 BOOK REVIEWS

will be a long and fruitful research career. The book belongs in every research
library, and in the hands of everybody who wishes to know about the teaching of
logic in the (Islamicate) classical and post-classical periods.
Taneli Kukkonen
University of Otago and University of jyväskylä
E-mail: taneli.kukkonen@jyu.fl
doi:10.]093/iis/ets062
Published online 22 June 2012

The Terror of God: Attar, Job and the Metaphysical Revolt

By NAVID KERMANI, translated by WIELAND HOBAN (Gambridge
and Maiden, MA: Polity Press, 2011), xiii-1-222 pp., bibliograpby,
index. Price PB £18.99. EAN 978-0745645278.

Navid Kermani, born in Germany in 1967 of Iranian descent, a university

professor in Cologne, became instantly famous in 1999 with a stunning, multiple
prize winning book: Cod is Beautiful (Gott ist schön).
The one under review. The Terror of Cod (Der Schrecken Gottes) is a sequel,
but in stark contrast: a veritable theodicy deaiouncing the popular image of a
Wohlfühlgott (make-one-feel-cosy-God).
Farîd al-Dîn 'Attar's thirteenth century Book of Suffering, his last and largest
one, engages in a counter-theological quarrel with God about the injustices
and cruelties of His world. 'If there is a way, I have not found it,' wrote 'Attar,
'the longer man walks, the more distant his goal becomes.' Indeed, the Book of
Suffering is an outburst of heretical piety, a Kafkaesque attack on God by
someone devoted to Him.
The book begins, however, in the oddest possible way with the author's broad
description of himself—since his days as a toddler—and of his large family,
good-hearted brothers, grandparents, uncles and aunts.
The author places 'Attâr squarely in the centre of the historical discussions
about evil for whose existence, according to Stendhal, 'God's only excuse is that
He does not exist'. A discussion hardly terminated by Leibniz' 'best of all worlds'
logic, assuming that God and humans perceive evil differently. Heinrich Heine
saw things more soberly: 'Heaven was invented for those to whom the earth no
longer has anything to offer.' (p. 23)
The author worked under the handicap that little is known about 'Attar
beyond his pharmacist profession. He was a great poet—more than mystic—
living at Nishapur, from 114 to 1221, dying under Mongol rule. Probably, he was
retrospectively stylized into a foolhardy Sufi holy man in order to neuter a
literary output that smacked of heresy and sacrilege.
Whatever the cause, 'Attâr is, and was, far less known, even in Persia today,
than Iranian fellow poets like al-Firdavvsî, 'Umar Khayyam, Jalâl al-Din Rûmî,
Sa'di, and Shams al-Dîn Hafiz—perhaps because his social criticism was much
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