Najm al-Dīn 'Alī ibn 'Umar al-Qazwīnī al-Kātibī (; born AH 600 / 1204 CE, died AH 675 / 1276 CE) was a

Persian Persian may refer to: * People and things from Iran, historically called ''Persia'' in the English language ** Persians, the majority ethnic group in Iran, not to be conflated with the Iranic peoples ** Persian language, an Iranian language of the ...

Islamic Islam is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the Quran, and the teachings of Muhammad. Adherents of Islam are called Muslims, who are estimated to number Islam by country, 2 billion worldwide and are the world ...

philosopher Philosophy ('love of wisdom' in Ancient Greek) is a systematic study of general and fundamental questions concerning topics like existence, reason, knowledge, Value (ethics and social sciences), value, mind, and language. It is a rational an ...

and

logician Logic is the study of correct reasoning. It includes both formal and informal logic. Formal logic is the study of deductively valid inferences or logical truths. It examines how conclusions follow from premises based on the structure of arg ...

of the

Shafi`i The Shafi'i school or Shafi'i Madhhab () or Shafi'i is one of the four major schools of fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence), belonging to the Ahl al-Hadith tradition within Sunni Islam. It was founded by the Muslim scholar, jurist, and traditionist al ...

school. He was a student of

Athīr al-Dīn al-Abharī Athīr al-Dīn al-Mufaḍḍal ibn ʿUmar ibn al-Mufaḍḍal al-Samarqandī al-Abharī (Persian): اثیرالدین مُفَضَّل بن عمر بن مَفَضَّل سمرقندی ابهری; d. 1262 or 1265 also known as Athīr al-Dīn al- ...

. His most important works are a treatise on logic, ''Al-Risala al-Shamsiyya'', and one on

metaphysics Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines the basic structure of reality. It is traditionally seen as the study of mind-independent features of the world, but some theorists view it as an inquiry into the conceptual framework of ...

and the natural sciences, ''Hikmat al-'Ain''. Further, he helped to establish the Maragha observatory along with

Nasir al-Din al-Tusi Muḥammad ibn Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan al-Ṭūsī (1201 – 1274), also known as Naṣīr al-Dīn al-Ṭūsī (; ) or simply as (al-)Tusi, was a Persians, Persian polymath, architect, Early Islamic philosophy, philosopher, Islamic medicine, phy ...

and several other astronomers.

Logic

His work on logic, the ''al-Risāla al-Shamsiyya'' (''Logic for Shams al-Dīn''), was commonly used as the first major text on logic in

madrasah Madrasa (, also , ; Arabic: مدرسة , ), sometimes romanized as madrasah or madrassa, is the Arabic word for any type of educational institution, secular or religious (of any religion), whether for elementary education or higher learning ...

s, right down until the twentieth century and is "perhaps the most studied logic textbook of all time". Al-Katibi's logic was largely inspired by the formal Avicennian system of temporal

modal logic Modal logic is a kind of logic used to represent statements about Modality (natural language), necessity and possibility. In philosophy and related fields it is used as a tool for understanding concepts such as knowledge, obligation, and causality ...

, but is more elaborate and departs from it in several ways. While Avicenna considered ten modalities and examined six of them, al-Katibi considers many more modalized propositions and examines thirteen which he considers 'customary to investigate'. Al-Katibi's other major work, ''Philosophy of the Source'', is a treatise about physics and

. Under the title ''The Rules of Logic,'' a bilingual Arabic edition and English translation of this text was published in 2024 by the

Library of Arabic Literature The Library of Arabic Literature () is a bilingual book series that publishes English translations and Arabic editions of Arabic texts from the seventh to nineteenth centuries. Premise The Library of Arabic Literature publishes editions of signi ...

, edited and translated by Tony Street of the

Faculty of Divinity Faculty or faculties may refer to: Academia * Faculty (academic staff), professors, researchers, and teachers of a given university or college (North American usage) * Faculty (division), a large department of a university by field of study (us ...

at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a Public university, public collegiate university, collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209, the University of Cambridge is the List of oldest universities in continuous operation, wo ...

References

Sources

External links

*
Najm al-Dīn al-Kātibī’s al-Risālah al-Shamsiyyah
'' an Arabic edition of the text, an English translation, and an extensive commentary by Tony Street, available for free download from the Library of Arabic Literature {{DEFAULTSORT:al-Katibi, Najm al-Din 1276 deaths 13th-century Iranian mathematicians Medieval Islamic philosophers Alchemists of the medieval Islamic world Iranian chemists 13th-century Iranian philosophers Iranian logicians 13th-century Iranian astronomers

Logic

See also

References

Sources

External links