that this intoxicating nabīdh is prohibited without exception unless he knows that it is intoxicating and that it is wine; that the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, prohibited every intoxicant; that he truly is the Messenger of Allah, so whatever he prohibited, Allah prohibited; and that his prohibition was universal, permitting it neither for medical treatment nor for pleasure.

Another indication that restricting inference to two premises is invalid is their definition of the syllogism, encompassing demonstrative, rhetorical, dialectical, poetic, and sophistical syllogisms:

“It is a statement composed of statements, or an expression of a composition of statements, such that, if these are conceded, another statement necessarily follows from them by virtue of those statements alone.”

They say:

“By saying ‘of statements,’ we exclude a single proposition which, by itself, entails the truth of its converse and its contrapositive, and the falsity of its contradictory, yet is not a syllogism.”

They say:

“We did not say ‘composed of premises,’ because we cannot define a premise, insofar as it is a premise, except as a component of a syllogism. Were we to include it in the definition of the syllogism, the definition would be circular.”

When a declarative proposition forms part of a syllogism, they call it a premise. When it is derived through a syllogism, they call it a conclusion. When considered apart from either role, they call it a proposition. It is also called a proposition even when designated a conclusion or a premise. It is a declarative statement, not a subject–predicate construction in the grammarians’ terminology; rather, it is broader than that. A subject–predicate construction can only be a nominal sentence, whereas a proposition may be either a nominal or a verbal sentence, as when one says, “Zayd has lied, and anyone who lies deserves discretionary punishment.”

The point here is that by ‘statement’ in their definition, ‘A syllogism is a statement composed of statements,’ they mean a proposition constituting a complete declarative sentence. They do not mean a simple expression, which is