The Correct Balance
Abu Hamid al-Ghazāli
Translated by
Richard McCarthy, S. J.
This is the work Ghazāli refers to in Paras. 68, 69, 70. 75, and 76. I translate the title as The Correct Balance. The expression occurs twice in the Qur’ān: 17.37/35 and 26.182. Blachére
translates “la balance exacte,” and Arberry “the straight balance.” Ghazālī
appropriately took his title from the Qur’ān, since this work is a somewhat
curious attempt to Islamicize, or “Qurānize,” some of the Aristotelian, and
Stoic, logic which he expounded more “scientifically” in others of his works. I have used the Arabic text edited by
Victor Chelhot, S.J.-al-Qistās al-Mustaqīm, Beyrouth, 1959,
and his French translation Institut Français de Damas, Bulletin d’Etudes orientales, Tome XV, annèes 1955-1957, Damas, 1958. “Ar” followed by a number
indicates the pagination of the Arabic text, and “Fr” that of the French text. Some discrepancies
seem due to the fact that Father Chelhot did his French translation from other
texts before he himself edited the Arabic text. I have enclosed in brackets
references, transliterations, variant translations, and explanatory notes. No
great deal of explanation is needed. The reader unfamiliar with Arabic will no
doubt be interested, and perhaps even intrigued, by the light this work throws
on the character and thought of its brilliant author.
[CHAPTER ONE]
Introduction [Fr 43-47; Ar
41-46]
1 First I praise God Most High; secondly
I invoke His
blessings on His Elect Apostle. Then I say: My brethren, is there among you one who will lend
me his ears that I may relate to him something [that took place in one] of my
conversations? On a certain trip a companion who belonged to the group
professing al-ta‘līm [authoritative instruction; a Bāţinite] unexpectedly questioned me and
disputed with me like one sure of his skill and his brilliant argument. He said: I see that you
claim the perfection of knowledge. By what balance, then, is true knowledge
perceived? Is it by the balance of independent reasoning [al-ra’y] and analogy [al-qiyās]?
But that is extremely contradictory and ambiguous and is
the cause of disagreement among men. Or is it by the balance of authoritative
instruction? In this case you would be obliged to follow the infallible
Teacher-Imam-but I do not see you desirous of seeking him out.
2 I replied: As for the balance of independent reasoning and analogy,
God forbid that I should cling to it!-for it is the balance of Satan. And I ask God Most
High to protect religion from the evil of any of my friends who alleges that it
is the balance of knowledge, for he is an ignorant friend of religion-and such a one is worse than
an intelligent enemy. Had he been gifted with the happiness of [professing] the doctrine of
authoritative instruction [Ghazālī is being sarcastic], he would first have
learned how to dispute from the Qur’ān, where the Most High said: “Call thou to
the way of thy Lord with wisdom and good admonition, and dispute with them in
the better way” [16.126/125]. God thus taught that some men are called by
wisdom [philosophy; Chelhot: connaissance rationelle, as opposed to the vision
of faith], and some by admonition [exhortation, preaching], and some by
disputation [dialectic].
3 [Fr
44; Ar 42] If those called by admonition [preaching]
are fed wisdom [philosophy] it harms them, just as feeding with the meat of
fowls harms the suckling child. And if dialectic is used with those called by
wisdom [philosophy] they are nauseated by it, just as the robust man’s nature
is nauseated by being breast-fed with human milk. And one who uses dialectic
with those called by dialectic, but not in the better way as he has learned
from the Qur’ān, is like one who feeds the desert Arab with wheat bread, when
the latter is used only to dates, or the townsman with dates, when he is used
only to wheat. Would that he had found a good example in Abraham, the Friend of
God-God’s blessings be upon him!-where he disputed with his adversary [Nimrod]
and said: “My Lord is He who gives life and makes to die” [2.260/258]. Then,
when he saw that that did not suit Nimrod and was not good in his view, so that
the latter said: “I give life, and I make to die” [ibid.], Abraham shifted to what was better
suited to his nature and more accessible to his understanding, and he said:
“God makes the sun rise from the east; do you, then, make it rise from the
west”: then the unbeliever was confounded [ibid.]. The Friend [of God]-God’s
blessings be upon him!-did not stubbornly persist in proving his adversary’s
inability to quicken the dead, since he knew it would be difficult for him to
understand that-for he on his side thought that “slaying” was “making to die.”
But proving that would not have suited Nimrod’s bent or have been in keeping
with the limit and level of his intelligence. And the Friend’s aim was not to
annihilate Nimrod, but to animate him: and feeding with suitable food is an
animating, but stubbornness in forcing to what is not suitable is an
annihilation. These are subtleties perceived only by the light of [the true]
authoritative instruction acquired from the illumination of the world of
prophecy. Therefore they have been excluded from understanding, because they
have been excluded from the secret of the doctrine of the [true] authoritative
teaching [i.e. that brought by the Prophet Muhammad].
4 He said: If you find their
[the Ta‘līmites’] way rough and their proof weak, with what do you weight your
knowledge? I said: I weigh it with “the correct balance” [17.37/35 and 26.1821 so that its true and its false, its
straight and its deviant, may be evident to me. In this I follow God Most High and learn from
the Qur’ān sent down on the tongue of His truthful Prophet, where He said:
“And weigh with the correct balance” [17.37/35].[Ar 43] He said: And
what is the correct balance? I said: The five scales which God Most High
sent down in His Book and with which He taught His Prophets to weigh. He who
learns from the Apostle of God and weighs with God’s scales is indeed rightly guided.
But he who turns from them to independent reasoning and analogy indeed errs and
is ruined. He said: Where are these scales in the Qur’ān-and is this anything but falsehood
and untruth [slander]?
5 I said: Have you not heard what the Most High said in the Sūra of the Benefactor [All-Merciful]: “The
All-Merciful has taught the Qur’ān. He created man and He has taught him the
Explanation.. . and heaven-He raised it up, and set the Balance [transgress not in the
Balance, and weigh with justice, and skimp not in the Balance] [55.1-3/1-4 and
6/7-8/9]. Have you not heard what He said in the Sūra of Iron: “Indeed, We sent
Our Messengers with the clear signs, and We sent down with them the Book and
the Balance so that men might uphold justice” [57.25]? Do you think that the Balance
joined with the Book is the balance for wheat and barley and gold and silver? Do
you imagine the Balance whose setting corresponds to the raising of heaven in
His utterance “and heaven-He raised it up, and set the Balance” [55.6/7] is the
assay balance [coin balance, “trèbuchet”] and the steelyard [qabbān: cf. Dozy
Suppl. II, 315; “balance romaine”]? What an improbable reckoning and enormous
slander [calumny]! So fear God and do not interpret arbitrarily! Know for sure
that this Balance is the Balance of the knowledge of God and of His angels and
of His Scriptures and of His Apostles and of His material and spiritual worlds
[or: sensible and mental, or, visible and invisible: mulkihi wa malakūtihi-cf.
Wensinck: Ĺa pensèe de Ghazzālī, pp.
86 ff.], so that you may learn how to weigh with it from His Prophets, as they learned from
His angels. God Most High, then, is the first teacher, the second is Gabriel,
and the third the Apostle. And all men learn from the Apostles that which they
have no other way of knowing [the negative is missing from Chelhot’s Arabic
text, but is clearly required].
6 I said: I also know that by authoritative teaching
[al-ta‘līm]-but from the Imam of the Imams [i.e. the supreme Imam], Muhammad
ibn ‘Abdallāh ibn ‘Abd al-Muţţalib-God’s blessings be upon him! For I, though I
do not see him, hear his teaching [ta‘līm] which [Ar 441 has come to me through
impeccable transmission which I can not doubt. His ta‘līm is simply the Qur’ān,
and the clearness of the correctness of the Qur’ān’s scales is known from the
Qur’ān itself. He said: Then give me your proof, and educe your balance from
the Qur’ān and show me how you
understand it and how you understand, from the Qur’ān itself, its correctness
and its soundness.
7 I said: Then give me your own proof: tell me how you know the correctness and
soundness of the balance for gold and silver. Knowledge of that is a
prerequisite of your debt, if you owe something, so that you may settle it
completely without any deficiency, or, if someone owes you something, that you
may receive it justly without any excess. So when you enter a Muslim market and
take a balance by which you pay the debt or exact payment of it, how do you
know that you are not unjust by paying too little or exacting too much? He said:
I esteem Muslims, and I say that they would not engage in
business except after regulating [equilibrating] the scales. But if a doubt
occurred to me about one of the balances. I would take it and raise it and look at the
two pans and the tongue [needle, indicator] of the balance. And if the needle
was perfectly vertical with no inclination to one of the two sides, and I saw,
along with that, the exact equilibrium of the two pans, I would know that it was a sound and
correct balance.
8 [Fr 46] I said: Granted that the
needle is perfectly vertical and that the two pans are at the same level, how do
you know that the balance is correct? He said: I know that by a necessary knowledge deriving from two
premises, one empirical and the other a fact of sensation. The empirical is
that I know from
experience that a heavy thing sinks downwards, and the heavier it is the more
it sinks. So I say: “If one of the two pans were heavier, it would sink more.” Now
this is a universal empirical premise which I come to have and [it is] necessary. The second premise
is: I see that one of
the two pans of this very balance does not sink but is on a perfect level with
the other. This premise is [Ar 45] a fact of sensation which I have seen with
my own eyes. So I doubt neither about the sensible premise, nor about the first which is an
empirical premise. In my mind, then, there necessarily follows from these two
premises a peremptory conclusion, viz. the equipoise of the balance. For I say:
If one of the two [pans] were heavier, it would sink
more.
But it is perceived by sensation that one does not sink
more.
Therefore it is known that it is not heavier.
[This is a conjunctive hypothetical syllogism.]
9
I said: But this is independent reasoning and rational analogy! He said: Not at all! It is
a necessary knowledge following necessarily from certain premises, by which
certitude derives from experience and sensation. How, then, could this be
independent reasoning and analogy, when analogy is surmise and conjecture not
giving serene certitude-and I feel in this serene certitude? I said: If you know the soundness of the balance by this proof, by
what do you know the [correctness of the] şanja and the mithqāl [weights used as
counterpoises]? Perhaps the mithqāl is lighter or heavier than the true mithqāl. He said: If I doubt about this, I take its measure from a şanja which I know and I compare this with it. If it is equal, I know that the gold, if
it is equal to it, is equal to my şanja: for the equal to
the equal is equal.
10 I said:
And do you know who he was who originally set up the balance? For he was the first
originator from whom you learn this [way of] weighing. He said: No! And whence
have I need of him,
since I have already come to know the soundness of the balance by seeing with my
own eyes? Nay, but I eat greens without inquiring about the kitchen garden
[truck farm]. For the one who sets up the balance is not wanted for his own sake, but he is
wanted that one may know from him the soundness of the balance and the manner
of weighing. But I have already known it, as I have related and explained. So I can dispense from consulting the one
who set up the balance at [Fr 47] every weighing. For that would take a long
time and he would not be accessible at every moment-in addition to my not
needing him!
10
I said:
Then if I bring you a balance for knowledge like this [physical] balance, and even
sounder than it, and I add to that that I know [Ar 46] its institutor and its teacher and its user-for its
institutor is God Most High, and its teacher Gabriel, and its user the Friend
[Abraham] and Muhammad and all the other Prophets-God’s blessings be on them
all!-and God Most High has born witness to their veracity in that-would you
accept that from me and believe it? He said: Yes, by God! How
could I not believe it, if it is as clear as what I recounted to you [about the physical
balance]?
12 I
said: Now I see
in you the good qualities of intelligence and my hope has come true of putting
you right and making you understand the real meaning of your doctrine about
your ta'līm [authoritative teaching]. So I shall disclose to you the five balances
revealed in the Qur’ān that by it [the Qur’ān] you may have no need of any Imam
and may surpass the level of the blind. And your Imam will be al-Muşţafā [the
Elect, Muhammad] and your leader [chief, director] the Qur’ān, and your norm
[standard, gauge] seeing with your own eyes. So know that the balances of the Qur’ān
are basically three: the balance of equivalence, and the balance of
concomitance, and the balance of opposition. But the balance of equivalence is
divided into three-the greater, the middle, and the lesser: so the total is five.
[Ar 47] [CHAPTER TWO]
On the Greater Balance of Equivalence [Fr. 47- 53; Ar 47-54]
[First Figure of the Categorical Syllogism; Analytica Priora
I, IV 25b, 26-6b, 34 M-P; S-M; S-P]
13 Then
this intelligent companion from the associates of the devotees of ta‘līm said: Explain to me in the first place the greater balance of
equivalence and explain to me the meanings of these terms, viz. Equivalence and
concomitance and opposition and the greater and the middle and the lesser: for
they are strange terms and doubtless beneath them there are subtle meanings. I
said: As for the
sense of these words, you will understand them only after they have been
explained and their meanings understood so that you may, after that, grasp the
aptness of their names for their realities.
14 I
tell you first of all that this balance [of equivalence] resembles the
[physical] balance of which you have given an account in sense [notion,
essence, “fond”], not in form. For it is a spiritual [rūhānī] balance [Chelhot:
une balance pour la pensèe] and so is not equivalent to a physical balance. And why should it be equivalent
to it, when physical balances also differ? For the qarasţūn [Chelhot: la
balance romaine; cf. Dozy II, 335] is a balance and the assay [coin] balance
[Chelhot: le trèbuchet] another. [Fr 48] Nay, but the astrolabe is a balance
[measure] for the amounts of the movements of the celestial body [orbit of
celestial bodies], and the ruler a balance [measure] for the amounts of linear
distances, and the plumbline a balance for ascertaining straightness
[perpendicularity] and deflection [curvature]. These, though their forms
differ, share in common the fact that by them one knows excess from defect. Indeed,
prosody is a balance [measure] for poetry by which one knows the metres of
poetry so that dragging [or: faulty, i.e. verse] is distinguishable from the
correct [straight]. And this is more spiritual than the material
[three-dimensional] balances, but it is not devoid of relations to bodies,
because it is the balance [measure] for sounds-and a sound is not separable
from a body. The most spiritual of [Ar 48] balances [measures] is the balance
of the Day of Judgment, since in it will be weighed actions and the beliefs of
creatures and their cognitions-and knowledge and belief have no relation at all
to bodies. Therefore this balance [measure] is purely spiritual.
15
Similarly the balance [measure] of the Qur’ān for knowledge is
spiritual. But its definition in the visible world [ālam al-shahäda] is bound
up with a wrapper [envelope, covering] which itself has a contact [adhesion]
with [to] bodies, though it is not itself a body. For in this world
communicating something to another is possible only orally, i.e. by sounds
[voices]-and sound is corporeal-or in writing, viz. signs [symbols] which
moreover are a writing on the surface of the paper and it is a body. This is
the determination [status] of its wrapper in which it occurs. But in itself it
is purely spiritual and has no connection at all with bodies. For by it is
weighed the knowledge of God which is outside the world of sensation-[for God
is] far removed from being involved with directions and districts, to say
nothing of bodies themselves. Despite that it [the balance of the Qur’ān] has
an arm and two pans. The two pans are attached to the arm, and the arm is
common to the two pans because of the attachment of each of them to it. This is
the balance of equivalence. As for the balance of concomitance, it is more like
the steelyard [Chelhot: la balance romaine], for it has one pan; but on the
other side there corresponds to it a spherical weight [knob] by which the
difference and evaluation become evident.
16 He
said: A mighty
booming, this! But where is the meaning? I hear the clapping of the mill wheel, but I see no flour!
I said to him: Patience! “And hasten not with the Qur’ān ere its revelation is
accomplished unto thee; and say: 0 my Lord, increase me in knowledge” [20.113/114]. Know
that haste is from the devil and deliberateness [slowness] is from God! [Ar 49]
17
Know that the Greater Balance is that which the Friend [Abraham] used
with Nimrod. So from him [Fr 49] we have learned it, but by means of the Qur’ān Nimrod claimed divinity. And “God,” by
agreement, is a designation of “the one who can do everything [is omnipotent].”
So Abraham said: “God is my God, because He it is who makes to live and causes
to die: He can do it and you cannot do it!” Nimrod replied: “I make to live and cause to die,”
meaning that he makes the semen live by coitus and causes to die by killing.
Then Abraham knew that it would be difficult for him to understand his error.
So he turned to what would be clearer for Nimrod and said: “God brings the sun
from the east: do you bring it from the west”-and he who misbelieved was
astonished [2.260/258]. And God Most High praised Abraham, saying: “And that
was Our proof which We brought to Abraham against his people” [6.83].
18 From this, then, I knew that the argument and apodeictic proof were in
the utterance and balance of Abraham. So I considered how it weighs, as you considered the balance
for gold and silver. And I saw in this argument two principles which were
coupled, and from them was engendered a conclusion which was the knowledge
[cognition], since the Qur’ān is built on ellipsis and concinnity. The full form of the balance is
that we say:
Whoever can make the sun rise is God [one principle].
But my God can make the sun rise [a second principle].
[Therefore] my God is God-and not you, Nimrod.
[Darii: A-1-1]
19
Consider now whether one who admits the two principles can then doubt
about the conclusion. Or is it even conceivable that anyone can doubt about
these two principles? Not at all! For there is no doubt about the statement
“God is the one who can make the sun rise,” because, for them [Ta‘līmites] and
for everyone, “God” is a designation for the omnipotent, and making the sun
rise belongs to the totality of those things [which he can do]. This principle
is known by convention and agreement. And our statement “The one who can make the
sun rise is not you” is known by seeing [ocular vision]-[This is not exactly
the premise used, but the text is that of the Ms.]. For the impotence of Nimrod
[Ar 50] and of everyone except him who moves the sun is attested by sensation.
And by God we mean the mover of the sun and the one who makes it rise. So we are compelled to conclude, from the
knowledge of the first principle, known by agreed-upon convention, and of the
second principle, known by seeing, that Nimrod is not God, but the “God” is God
Most High.
20 So
consult yourself: do you think this clearer than the empirical and sensible
premise on which you built [based] the soundness of the balance for gold? He
said: This knowledge follows from it of necessity. And I can doubt neither
about the two principles, nor about the entailment of this conclusion from
them. But this is useful to me only [Fr 50] in this instance and in the way
Abraham-Peace be upon him!-used it, viz. to deny the divinity of Nimrod and to
affirm the divinity of the one who alone can make the sun rise. So how can I
weigh by it the other cognitions [ma‘arif: knowledges] which
are a problem for me and in which I need to distinguish the true from the false?
21 I said: Whoever weighs
gold in a balance can weigh in it silver and all the precious stones. For the
balance makes known its quantity, not because it is gold, but because it is a
quantity. Similarly, then, this proof [al-burhān] disclosed to us this
knowledge, not because of the knowledge itself, but because it is a truth
[haqīqa] among truths and a meaning [ma‘nan] among meanings. So let us ponder
why this conclusion necessarily follows from it and take its spirit and divest it
of this particular example so
that we may profit by it whenever we wish.
22
This necessarily followed simply because “the judgment made regarding
the attribute” [şifa] is of necessity a judgment regarding the subject [mawşūf: “attributized”
cf. Chelhot’s note on varying terminological usage of grammarians, mutakallimūn, jurisprudents,
and logicians]. The explanation of this is that the abridgment of this argument
is:
My Lord is the one who makes the sun rise.
And the one who makes the sun rise is a god.
So it follows from it that my Lord is a god.
[This seems to violate the rule for the First Figure,
viz. that the minor must be affirmative and the major universal; also it does
not seem to be: M-P; S-M; S-P. ??? Should it rather be: The one who makes the sun rise is a god; and my Lord is the one who makes
the sun rise; so it follows from it that my Lord is a god. ?] Thus “the one who makes the sun rise”
is an attribute of the Lord. And we have judged regarding “the one who makes
the sun rise”-which is an attribute-that he has divinity. So there follows from
it the judgment regarding my Lord that He has divinity. And so in every case in
which I acquire a knowledge of the attribute of a thing, and acquire [Ar 51]
another knowledge of the certain existence of a judgment about that attribute,
there will be engendered for me necessarily from it a third knowledge of the
certain existence of that judgment with reference to the thing qualified [by
the attribute].
23 He said: Grasping this is
almost too subtle for my understanding. If, then, I doubt, what should I do so that the doubt may disappear? I
said: Take its measure
from the balance-weight which is already known to you, as you did in the case
of the balance for gold and silver. He said: How shall I take
its measure? And where is the balance-weight known regarding this sort of
thing? I said: The known
balance-weight consists of the necessary [Chelhot here cites the Mustazhirī “The meaning of a
thing’s being necessary and in no need of reflection is the sharing of the
intelligent in perceiving it”] primary cognitions derived either from
sensation, or from experience, or from the nature of the intellect.
24
Reflect, then, on the primary [cognitions]. Can you conceive that a
judgment regarding an attribute exists without its being also applicable to the
subject [qualified]? For example, if there passes in front of you an animal
with a swollen belly, and it is a mule, and someone says: “This animal is
pregnant,” and you say to him: “Do you know that a mule is sterile and does not bear offspring?” and he
says: “Yes, I know this by experience,” and you say: “Do you know that this is a mule?” and he
looks, then says: “Yes, I know that by sensation and sight,” and you say: “Now,
then, do you know that it is not [Fr 51] pregnant?”-he will be unable to doubt
it after knowing the two principles, one of them empirical and the other a fact of sensation. On the
contrary, the knowledge that it is not pregnant will be a necessary knowledge
engendered by the two prior knowledges, just as your knowledge about the
balance is derived from the empirical knowledge that the heavy sinks and the
sensible knowledge that one of the two pans is not sinking with reference to
the other.
25 He said:
I have understood
this clearly. But it is not evident to me that the cause of its entailment is that the judgment
about the quality [attribute] is a judgment about the qualified [subject]. I said: Reflect! For your
statement “This is a mule” is a qualifying [description] and the qualification
[quality; attribute] is the mule; [Ar 52] and your statement “Every mule is
sterile” is a judgment about the mule which is a quality, of sterility. So there is entailed the judgment of
sterility about the animal which is described as [is qualified by being] a
mule.
26
Similarly, if it is evident to you, for example, that every animal is
sensitive [hassās: possessed of sensation, sensing], and then it is evident to you about the worm that it is an animal,
it is impossible for you to doubt that it is sensitive. Its method [minhāj],
then, is that you say:
Every worm is an animal.
And every animal is sensitive.
Therefore, evcry worm is sensitive.
[Barbara: but better to invert the major and the minor ??I For your statement “Every worm is an
animal” is an attribution to the worm of being an animal, and “animal” is its
attribute [quality]. So when you judge of the animal that it is sensitive, or
is a body, or is something else, the worm undoubtedly falls under it. This is
necessary and cannot be doubted. To be sure the condition of this is that the
attribute be equal to the subject [the qualified], or more general than it, so
that the judgment about the qualified will necessarily include that by which it
is qualified.
27 Similarly, whoever admits, in legal
reasoning, that every wine is intoxicating, and that everything intoxicating is
forbidden, cannot doubt that every wine is prohibited. For “intoxicating” is a
qualification of the wine, and so the judgment of its being forbidden includes
the wine, since the qualified undoubtedly is included in it. And so for all the
areas [classes] of speculative matters.
28 He
said: I have understood necessarily that effecting the union of
the two principles in this way engenders a necessary conclusion, and that the
proof of Abraham-Peace be upon him!-is a sound proof and his balance a true
balance. I have also learned its definition [haddahu:
Chelhot-principe de dèduction] and its reality [real
meaning, essence] and I have known its measure [norm, gauge] from the balance-weights known to
me. But I wish to know an example of the use of this balance in the problematic
areas of cognitions [or: the sciences]. For these examples are clear in themselves
and for them one does not need a balance or a proof.
29 I said: Far from it! For some of these examples are not known in themselves, but
are engendered from the coupling of the two principles. For only he knows that
this animal is sterile who knows through sensation that it is a mule, and knows
empirically that a mule does not bear offspring. Only a primary cognition [al-awaalī: Chelhot-le
premier] is clear in itself. But what is engendered from two principles has a
father and a mother: so it is [Fr 52] not clear in itself but by reason of
something else. But that something else, i.e. the two principles, may be clear
in some circumstances, biz. after experience and seeing. Similarly, the fact
[Ar 53] that wine [al-nabīdh] is illicit is not clear in itself, but is known by two principles: one is
that it is intoxicating-and this is known empirically; and the second is that
everything intoxicating is illicit-and this is known through the report whch
has come down from the lawgiver.
30
This informs you how to weigh with this balance and how to use it.
Should you desire an example obscurer than this, why we have unlimited and
endless such examples. Indeed, it is by this balance that we come to know most
of the obscure cases. But be content with a single example of that.
31
Among the obscure cases is this: Man is either incipient by himself, or
he has a cause and a maker. The same is true of the world. Now when we have
recourse to this balance, we know that man has a maker, and that his maker is
knowing. For we say:
Every possible has a cause.
But the world’s, or man’s, being characterized by the
quantity peculiar to it [him] is something possible,
Therefore it necessarily follows from this that it [he]
has a cause [Darii]
No one who admits and recognizes the two principles can
doubt about this conclusion. But if he doubts about the two principles, then
let him deduce the knowledge of them from two other clear principles until he
finally reaches the primary cognitions about which there can be no doubt. For
the clear primary cognitions are the principles [for knowing] of the obscure
and hidden cognitions and they are their seeds. But they are to be exploited by
one who is expert in exploiting by cultivation and producing [deduction,
inference] in bringing about coupling between them.
32 If you say: I doubt about
both of the two principles. So why do you affirm that every possible has a
cause? And why do you say that man’s being characterized by a specific quantity
is possible, and not necessary? I say: My affirmation
“Every possible has a cause” is clear if you understand the meaning of al-jā'īz [the possible]. For I mean by “the possible” that which hesitates
[wavers: is between] two equal divisions [or: parts]. Now when two things are
equal, one of them is not specified [marked, singled out for] by existence and
nonexistence of itself-because what is established for [affirmed of] a thing is
of necessity established for its like: and this is a primary truth. As for my
statement “Man’s being characterized by this quantity, for example, is possible
and not necessary,” it is like my saying that the line written by the
writer-and it has a specific quantity-is possible. For the line, qua line, has
no single determined quantity, but conceivably may be longer and shorter. The
cause of its being characterized by its quantity, as against what is longer or
shorter, is undoubtedly the agent-since the relation of the quantities to the
line’s reception of them is equal [in all cases]: and this is necessary [a
necessary truth]. Similarly, the relation of the quantities of man’s form and
extremities is equal: so its specification must undoubtedly be through an agent.
33
[Ar 54] Then I progress from this and say: Man’s agent is knowing,
because every well-ordered and well-done action is based on the knowledge of an
agent. But the structure [physical constitution] of man is a well-ordered and
well-made structure. So undoubtedly [Fr 53] its ordering is based on the
knowledge of an agent. Here we have two principles: if we know them, we do not
doubt about the conclusion. One of them is that the structure of man is well
ordered: this is known through seeing the harmony of man’s members and the
disposition of each for a special purpose [end], such as the hand for grasping
[striking] and the leg for walking; and knowledge of anatomy [the dissection of
organs] produces necessary knowledge of this. As for the need of what is well
organized and ordered for knowledge, it is also clear. No intelligent man
doubts that the well-ordered line of writing proceeds only from one who knows
how to write, even though it be by means of the pen which does not have
knowledge; and that a construction suitable for the purpose of sheltering, such
as a house and a bath and a mill and so forth, proceeds only from one who knows
how to build.
34 If it
were possible to doubt about any of this, our procedure would be to progress to what is clearer until we
come to the primary truths. To explain that is not our purpose. Rather, our
purpose is to show that the coupling of primary truths, in the way the Friend
[Abraham] effected it-God’s blessings be upon him!-is a true balance which gives
knowledge of the truth. No one declares this false, for it would be to declare
false God’s teaching of His Prophets and to deny what God praised-Glorious and
Exalted He!-when He said: “And that was Our proof which We brought to Abraham
against his people” [6.83]-and the authoritative teaching [al-ta‘līm: i.e. brought by Muhammad] is undoubtedly true, [even] if independent
reasoning be not true; and the denial of this involves the denial of both
independent reasoning and authoritative teaching-and no one at all holds this.
[Ar
55]
[CHAPTER THREE]
Discussion of the Middle
Balance [of Equivalence] [Ar 55-58; Fr
53-55]
[Second Figure of the Categorical Syllogism: Anal. Pr.
I, V, 26b, 34-28a, 9]
35 He said: I have now understood the Greater Balance and its definition and standard
and ordinary use. so explain to me [now] the Middle Balance-what is it, whence came the
teaching of it, who instituted it, and who used it?
36 I
said: The Middle
Balance is also the Friend’s [Abraham’s]-Peace be upon him!-in the place where
God Most High said: “I love not the things which set” [6.76]. The full form of
this scale is:
The moon is a thing which sets.
But God is not a thing which sets.
Therefore the moon is not a God.
But the Qur’ān is its foundation by way of concinnity
and ellipsis. However, knowledge of the denial of divinity of the moon becomes
necessary only by knowledge of these two principles, viz. that the moon is a
thing which sets and that God is not a thing which sets. When the two
principles are known, the knowledge of the denial of the divinity of the moon becomes necessary.
37 [Fr 54] Then he said: I do not doubt that the denial of the divinity of the moon is engendered from the two
principles, if both are known. However, I know that the moon is a thing which
sets-and this is known by sensation; but that God is not a thing which sets I
know neither necessarily nor by sensation.
38 I said: My aim, in
reporting this balance, is not to make you know that the moon is not [Ar 56] a
God. Rather it is to apprise you that the balance is accurate [faithful] and
that the knowledge stemming from it by this way of weighing is necessary. From
it knowledge resulted in the case of the Friend-Peace be upon him!-only because
it was known to him that God is not a thing which sets, though that knowledge was not
primary for him, but rather was derived from two other principles which give
rise to the knowledge that God is not a thing which changes [a changer]. And
every changer is incipient: and setting is changing. So he based the weighing
on what was known to him. Do you, then, take the balance and use it where there
exists for you knowledge of the two principles.
39 He said: I now understand of necessity that this
balance is accurate, and that this knowledge follows necessarily from the two
principles once the latter are known. But I want you to explain to me the
definition [logical principle; principe de dèduction] of this balance and its
real nature [haqīqatuhu:
Chelhot-son véritable mode d’emploi], and then to
explain to me its standard with reference to a weight [counterbalance] known to
me, and then [to give me] an example of its use in the area of the obscure: for
denying divinity of the moon is like what is clear to me.
40 I
said: Its
definition [logical principle] is that any two things, one of which is
qualified by a quality which is denied of the other, are different [distinct
one from the other]-i.e. one of them is denied of the other and is not
qualified by it. And just as the logical principle of the Greater Balance is
that the judgment applying to the more general is a judgment applying to the
more particular and is undoubtedly included
therein, so the logical principle of this balance is
that that of which is denied what is affirmed of another is different
[distinct] from that other. Now setting is denied of God and affirmed of the
moon: so this necessitates difference [distinction] between God and the moon,
viz. that the moon is not a God, nor is God a moon.
41 God Most
High taught His Prophet Muhammad-Peace be upon him!-to weigh by this balance in
many places in the Qur’ān, to follow the example of his father the Friend-Peace
be upon him! Be content with my calling attention to two places and seek the
rest in the verses of the Qur’ān.
42 One of the two is the Most High’s saying
to His Prophet: “Say: Why then does He chastise you for your sins? No, you are
mortals, of His creating” [5.21/18]. [Ar 57] That was because they claimed to
be the sons of God. So God Most High taught him how to expose their error by
means of the correct balance. [Fr 55] He said: “Why then does He chastise you
for your sins?” The full form of this balance is:
Sons [of God1 are not chastised [by God].
But you are chastised [by God].
Therefore you are not sons [of God]. [Festino]
So they are two principles. That sons are not chastised
is known by experience; and that you are chastised is known by seeing. From
these two necessarily follows the denial of sonship.
43
The second place is the Most High’s saying: “Say: You of Jewry, if you
assert that you are the friends of God, apart from other
men, then desire death, if you speak truly. But they will never desire it”
[62.6-7]. That was because they claimed friendship [with God]. Now it is a
known fact that the friend desires to meet his friend; and it was also known
that they did not desire death, which is the cause of the meeting. So it
follows of necessity that they are not the friends of God. The full form
of the balance is to say:
Every friend desires to meet his friend.
But the Jew does not desire to meet God.
Therefore [it follows necessarily from this that] he is
not the friend of God. [Camestres]
[This syllogism seems to me to involve four terms. Would
it perhaps be more correct to say: Every friend of God desires to meet his
friend God. But the Jew does not long to meet God. Therefore the Jew is not a
friend of God. ??]
And its logical principle is that desire is attributed
to a friend but denied of the Jew: so the friend and the Jew are different and
one of the two is denied of the other-so the friend [of God] is not a Jew, nor is the Jew a friend of God.