[Ibn Taymiyya’s commentary]

I say:

A number of later scholars agreed with Abū al-Maʿālī’s rejection of analogy in matters of reason, including Abū Hāmid al-Rāzī and Abū Muhammad al-Maqdisī. He said:

“Analogical inference applies only in matters of religious law.”

Logicians may claim that analogical inference in rational matters yields only probable belief. Most rational thinkers, however, hold that universal syllogistic inference and analogical inference do not differ in their capacity to yield knowledge or probable belief. What serves as the middle term in a universal syllogism serves as the basis of the ruling in an analogy, and is called the effective cause, the attribute, or the common factor.

Thus, if one says, “Intoxicating nabīdh (a steeped drink) is forbidden because it is intoxicating, and every intoxicant is forbidden,” this is a universal syllogism. It requires evidence establishing the validity of its major premise: “Every intoxicant is forbidden.” If one instead reasons by analogy, one says: “It is intoxicating and therefore forbidden, by analogy with intoxicating grape juice.”

One then explains that the effective cause in the original case is intoxication. The evidence establishing that this attribute is the effective cause in the original case is the same evidence that establishes the validity of the major premise. Intoxication is the attribute upon which the ruling depends and the basis for its application. It is the common factor between the original case and the new case upon which the ruling depends. Intoxication characterized by intoxication is the middle term established in the universal syllogism: it is the predicate in the minor premise and the subject in the major premise.

As for what he reported concerning Ahmad, Ahmad’s followers rejected it. Indeed, Abū al-Baqāʾ al-ʿUkbarī said to someone who read al-Burhān to him:

“This report does not correctly represent the position of Imam Ahmad.”

He was right. Ahmad did not prohibit examining sound rational evidence that leads to the conclusion sought. Rather, his discussions of the foundations of religion, in refutation of the Jahmiyya and others, contain arguments based on rational evidence