The Genesis of Arabic Logical Activities: From Syriac Rhetoric and Jewish Hermeneutics to āl-Šāfi‘y’s Logical Techniques

This paper tries to outline a history of development of informal logic in Semitic languages and especially in Arabic. It tries to explain how the first definite formulation of rules of this logic appeared at āl-Šāfi‘y’s Risāla, a work on ’uswl āl-fiqh or methodology of law. It attempts also to provide new theories and hypotheses about the translation movement in the Arabic and Islamic medieval world.