Excerpt from Deborah L

For the entire Islamic tradition, the crowning glory of Aristotelian logic is the syllogistic theory outlined in the Prior and Posterior Analytics, especially the latter. The purpose of logic is to provide the means whereby knowledge is to be acquired, and the most valuable type of knowledge is that which is certain and necessary, that is, knowledge gained according to the paradigm of demonstrative science laid out in the Posterior Analytics. This part of logic, in the words of al-Farabi's Ihsa' al-'ulum, is 'the strongest and preeminent in dignity and authority. Logic seeks its primary aim in this part alone, and the rest of its parts are only for its sake' (Ihsa' al-'ulum, in Amin 1968: 89). Even the formal study of the syllogism itself is primarily undertaken for the sake of its employment in demonstrations.