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The term maḥmūl ‘predicate’ is part of Arabic philosophical terminology, equivalent to the Latin praedicatum (Georr 1948:217; Afnan 1969:80–81; Versteegh 1993:24–25). Its meaning in philosophical terminology corresponds to that of xabar in linguistics (Elamrani-Jamal 1983:138–144; Fārābī, Ḥurūf 111.5–7), or ṣifa as opposed to mawṣūf in theological terminology (Wolfson 1976:112–132; Ibn Sīnā, Maqūlāt 18–19). The composition of mawḍūʿ ‘subject’ and maḥmūl can be brought about ‘in the way of limitation’ ( ʿalā naḥw at-taqyīd) or ‘in the way of report’ ( ʿalā sabīl al-xabar). Fol…

1. The meaning of the term mawḍūʿ The term mawḍūʿ is used in two senses: i.When derived from waḍʿ, which serves in the literature translated from Greek as the equivalent of the verb títhēmi ‘to place’, mawḍūʿ refers to ‘mutual agreement, convention’ (Pollak 1913:58; Georr 1948:249; Afnan 1969:315–316). Mawḍūʿ is used in this sense by az-Zajjājī (d. 339/949): “A noun is an invented sound with a conventional meaning, not specified by time” ( al-ism ṣawt mawḍūʿ dāll bi-ttifāq ʿalā maʿnan ġayr maqrūn bi-zamān; Versteegh 1995:58). This term refers to the prevailing view in Arabic …

Qiyās is the term used for an argument that relies on the similarity between two things. It is a generally accepted opinion in Islam that the use of qiyās can be derived from the Qurʾān and the Ḥadīt̲ (al-ʿUmarī 1987:19–53), although the word itself is not found in them. It has been demonstrated elsewhere (Lloyd 1966) that the observation of similarity is a starting point of the most elementary epistemological procedures in all cultures. In Classical antiquity, it is well attested, starting from Homer in the prephilosophical age ri…