Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ

Shāfiʿī hadith scholar of Damascus whose fatwa declaring the study of logic impermissible is the best-known statement of the opposing view; al-Akhḍarī’s Sullam names him first among those who forbade it.

Life

Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ was born in 577/1181 in the village of Sharakhān near Irbil and was taught Shāfiʿī law first by his father, Ṣalāḥ al-Dīn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān. He studied in Mosul, Damascus, Harran and as far east as Merv, then taught in Jerusalem and Damascus. From 630/1233 until his death he headed the Dār al-Ḥadīth al-Ashrafiyya in Damascus. He died there on 25 Rabīʿ II 643 (19 September 1245).

His introduction to the science of hadith, known as Muqaddimat Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ or ʿUlūm al-ḥadīth, became the standard work of its field and was commented on, abridged and versified many times; al-Nawawī abridged it. He also wrote a biographical dictionary of Shāfiʿī jurists, a manual for muftīs (Adab al-muftī wa-l-mustaftī) and a collection of fatwas. Ibn Khallikān was among his students.

Asked about people who studied and taught philosophy and logic, he answered that philosophy is “the head of folly and dissolution”, that logic “is the entrance to philosophy, and the entrance to evil is evil”, and that teaching and learning it is not something the Lawgiver has permitted. He added that the ruler should remove those who teach it from the madrasas. According to the TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi, the rulers of Damascus followed this view, and for years philosophy and logic were not taught there.

Works

• Muqaddimat Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ (ʿUlūm al-ḥadīth) مُقَدِّمَةُ ابْنِ الصَّلَاحِThe classic handbook of hadith terminology and method.work
• Fatāwā wa-masāʾil Ibn al-Ṣalāḥ فَتَاوَى وَمَسَائِلُ ابْنِ الصَّلَاحِHis collected fatwas, including the fatwa against philosophy and logic (cited as Fatāwā 1/209).work
• Adab al-muftī wa-l-mustaftī أَدَبُ المُفْتِي وَالمُسْتَفْتِيOn the conduct of those who give and ask for fatwas.work
• Ṭabaqāt al-fuqahāʾ al-Shāfiʿiyya طَبَقَاتُ الفُقَهَاءِ الشَّافِعِيَّةِBiographical dictionary of Shāfiʿī jurists, later reorganised and abridged by al-Nawawī.work

Reception

Al-Akhḍarī’s Sullam names him, with al-Nawawī, as representing the view that logic is forbidden, and modern opponents of logic still cite his fatwa.

Later defenders of logic, such as al-Damanhūrī in his commentary on the Sullam, argued that the prohibition concerned logic mixed with the philosophers’ doctrines, not the logic taught in the madrasas. A modern reader of the fatwa (Muḥammad Abū al-Fatḥ, 2025) argues instead that the ruling was general and rested on blocking the means to harm.

Ignaz Goldziher read such fatwas as making logic a forbidden science outright; Khaled El-Rouayheb (2004) has argued that this reading is mistaken and that, between 1500 and 1800, such opposition was marginal.