Shāfiʿī jurist, legal theorist and biographer of Damascus whose comparison of logic to a sword, quoted by later jurists, became a standard argument for permitting its study.
Life
Tāj al-Dīn al-Subkī was born in Cairo in 727/1327, the son of the great Shāfiʿī scholar Taqī al-Dīn al-Subkī, with whom he moved to Damascus in 739/1338 when his father became chief judge there. He studied with al-Dhahabī, al-Mizzī and Abū Ḥayyān al-Andalusī among many others, was licensed to give fatwas at eighteen, and taught in most of the great madrasas of Damascus. He succeeded his father as Shāfiʿī chief judge of Damascus in 756/1355 and, apart from two brief dismissals, held the post until he died of plague on 7 Dhū al-Ḥijja 771 (2 July 1370). He was buried in the family tomb on Mount Qāsiyūn.
His Jamʿ al-jawāmiʿ, a compendium of legal theory that combines the Ḥanafī and Shāfiʿī methods, was read in madrasas for centuries and attracted many commentaries; al-Maḥallī’s commentary on it was glossed by al-Bannānī and al-ʿAṭṭār and annotated by al-Shirbīnī, and al-Yūsī began a commentary on it. His Ṭabaqāt al-Shāfiʿiyya al-kubrā is the fullest biographical dictionary of his school. In theology he defended the Ashʿarīs, arguing in al-Sayf al-mashhūr that their differences with the Ḥanafīs in creed were few and mostly verbal.
His importance for logic lies in a saying that later jurists quoted. Khaled El-Rouayheb shows that Ibn Ḥajar al-Haytamī (d. 973/1566), asked whether logic may be studied, answered that without logic no one can reply to the doubts raised by the philosophers and other groups, quoted the Mālikī jurist al-Qarāfī (d. 684/1285) to the effect that the conditions of definition and inference, which logic sets out, are a precondition of independent legal reasoning (ijtihād), and closed by quoting al-Subkī: logic is like a sword, with which one person fights in God’s cause and another robs travellers. El-Rouayheb cites al-Subkī, with al-Qarāfī before him, as evidence that leading jurists of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries did not share the hostility to logic that Goldziher took to be dominant.
Uncertain or disputed
- The original context of the sword simile has not been located; the sources consulted know it through Ibn Ḥajar al-Haytamī’s quotation. This site’s article ‘Views on logic’ also reports conditions he set for studying logic (prior grounding in the Qurʾān, the Sunna and law, and a warning about arrogance); these could not be checked in the sources consulted here.
- Year of birth: 727 (TDV, from his own account of his studies); some sources give 728 or 729.
Works
- Jamʿ al-jawāmiʿ fī uṣūl al-fiqh جَمْعُ الجَوَامِعِ فِي أُصُولِ الفِقْهِCompendium of legal theory, a madrasa textbook with many commentaries and glosses (Cairo 1304 and later).werk
- Manʿ al-mawāniʿ ʿan Jamʿ al-jawāmiʿHis answers to questions on Jamʿ al-jawāmiʿ.werk
- Ṭabaqāt al-Shāfiʿiyya al-kubrā طَبَقَاتُ الشَّافِعِيَّةِ الكُبْرَىBiographical dictionary of the Shāfiʿī school, ed. al-Ṭanāḥī and al-Ḥulw, 10 vols., Cairo 1964–76.werk
- Muʿīd al-niʿam wa-mubīd al-niqamOn the duties of officials and professions; ed. Myhrman, London 1908.werk
- al-Sayf al-mashhūr fī sharḥ ʿaqīdat Abī ManṣūrCommentary on a creed attributed to al-Māturīdī; ed. with Turkish translation by M. Saim Yeprem (Istanbul 1989).commentaar
Reception
His sword simile entered the standard discussions of the legal status of logic through Ibn Ḥajar al-Haytamī’s fatwa (El-Rouayheb).
Sources (2)
- Bilal Aybakan and Cağfer Karadaş, ‘Sübkî, Tâceddin’, TDV İslâm Ansiklopedisi (2010)
- Khaled El-Rouayheb, ‘Sünnî Müslüman Âlimlerin Mantık İlmi Karşısındaki Tavırları (1500–1800)’ (Turkish translation of ‘Sunni Muslim Scholars on the Status of Logic, 1500–1800’, Islamic Law and Society 11, 2004), Mantık Araştırmaları Dergisi 1/1 (2019)