“Every intoxicant is wine,” or “Every intoxicant is forbidden.”
For the believer, no further middle term is needed to establish that the prohibition of intoxicants follows from this middle term—namely, the statement of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. Nor is a middle term needed to establish that the prohibition of the disputed fermented drink follows from the prohibition of intoxicants. Everyone knows that if he forbids every intoxicant, he thereby forbids the intoxicating fermented drink under dispute; and every believer knows that whatever the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, forbids is forbidden.
If someone says, “The proof that it is forbidden is that it is intoxicating,” then, if his interlocutor knows that it is intoxicating and that intoxicants are forbidden, he will concede its prohibition. But he may be overlooking the fact that it is intoxicating, or he may not know that it is intoxicating. The same applies if someone says, “Because it is wine.” If the interlocutor acknowledges that it is wine, its prohibition is established. If he acknowledges this after denying it, he may previously have been ignorant and then learned, or heedless and then remembered. Not everyone who knows something has it in mind.
For this reason, these logicians disagreed over whether knowledge of the two premises suffices for knowledge of the conclusion, or whether one must also become aware of a third matter. The latter is the position of Ibn Sīnā and others. They argued that a person may know that a female mule does not give birth, then lose sight of that fact. He sees a female mule with a swollen belly and asks, “Is this one pregnant or not?”
He is asked, “Do you not know that it is a female mule?”
He replies, “Yes.”
He is asked, “Do you not know that a female mule does not give birth?”
He replies, “Yes.”
It is then, he said, that the person becomes aware that it does not give birth.
Al-Rāzī and others disputed his position, saying: “This is weak. If the inclusion of one premise under the other is something distinct from the two premises, it would constitute a further premise that must itself enter into the inference. The question of how it combines with the first two would then be no different from the question of