I. ĀDĀB AL-BAḤTH WA-AL-MUNĀẒARA: A SURVEY OF WESTERN SCHOLARSHIP

As early as 1979, Nicolas Heer drew attention to the major texts of ādāb al-baḥth wa-al-munāẓara, including those of al-Ījī and Ṭāshköprüzāde. On the basis of these texts, he describes the three methods of objection in the discipline: denial, manʿ, refutation, naqḍ and opposition, muʿāraḍa.Footnote ⁵ However, in so doing, he was footnoting a passage in al-Durra al-fākhira by ʿAbd al-Raḥmān Jāmī (d. 1492), a text he translated and annotated. By the time Jāmī wrote his work, the terminology and the procedures of ādāb al-baḥth wa-al-munāẓara were widely accepted.

It was not until L. B. Miller dedicated a chapter to ādāb al-baḥth wa-al-munāẓara in his dissertation, in 1984, that one can read a first systemic account of the discipline. Miller divided his work into four parts, exploring different forms of dialectics in the Muslim intellectual history. The fourth part discusses ādāb al-baḥth wa-al-munāẓara. Therein, he identifies al-Samarqandī as the founder of the discipline. Miller argues that logic had a decisive impact on this final phase of Muslim dialectics. He states that “we may consider al-Samarqandī as the first Arab logician to have devoted himself qua logician to the logic of debate”.Footnote ⁶ In this thesis, Miller follows N. Rescher whose entry on al-Samarqandī in his The Development of Arabic Logic, contains several inaccurate elements. Without examining al-Samarqandī's books, Rescher understood the word jadal to mean dialectics as it is dealt with in the Topics of Aristotle.Footnote ⁷ In fact, the word jadal, which appears in al-Samarqandī's titles, means juridical dialectics. Often, it has been used interchangeably with khilāf. While it has recourse to a few logical terms such as concomitance and correlation, it does so in the Ḥanafī juristic tradition.

Although it is agreed here that logic fashioned al-Samarqandī's treatise Ādāb al-baḥth, it should also be noted that ādāb al-baḥth wa-al-munāẓara relied on other sources. As I will show in my analysis, the role of logic should be carefully understood as a formal procedure that supports but does not replace juridical dialectics.

To date, L. B. Miller's chapter remains the most thorough study of al-Samarqandī's treatise. The dissertation of Ali Bin Mahfouz, submitted in 2002 and based on Taqrīr al-qawānīn al-mutadāwala min ʿilm al-munā ẓara by M. b. Abī Bakr Sājaqlīzāde (d. 1737), is unsatisfactory. Its approach is biographical and lacks any critical examination or analysis of the text. Its seventh and final chapter entitled “Principles and Criteria of Debate”,Footnote ⁸ which should have provided the technical quintessence of the discipline, preaches instead religious rules that should be followed in a discussion. Despite its normative tone, this study should be credited for dedicating an entire work to the discipline of ādāb al-baḥth wa-al-munāẓara. It should be also noted that Bin Mahfouz produced an excellent edition of the book Taqrīr al-qawānīn al-mutadāwala min ʿilm al-munāẓara.

In 2010, Mehmet Kadri Karabela's dissertation The Development of Dialectic and Argumentation Theory in Post-Classical Islamic Intellectual History brought ādāb al-baḥth wa-al-munāẓara into light again. In his approach, Karabela draws on Miller's terminology and structure. Karabela's work is the most comprehensive survey and description of the discipline. However, his work contains little analysis.Footnote ⁹ In particular, Karabela fails to see the continuity between ādāb al-baḥth wa-al-munāẓara and Ḥanafī juridical dialectics.

II. AL-SAMARQANDI'S ĀDĀB AL-BAḤTH: A GENERAL ARS DISPUTANDI

Shams al-Dīn b. Muḥammad Ashraf al-Samarqandī, a logician, mathematician, theologian and Ḥanafī jurist lived in the second half of the 13^th century, benefitting, thus, from the philosophical turn taken by Muslim theology since Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 1209). Moreover, of great impact on him was his teacher Burhān al-Dīn al-Nasafī (d. 1288) whose field of expertise was juridical dialectics. Al-Nasafī's Muqaddima fī al-khilāf served as a teaching manual of juridical dialectics in Ḥanafī circles for centuries. Al-Samarqandī started his career in juridical dialectics as a commentator of his teacher's book.Footnote ¹⁰ Most of al-Samarqandī's extant fifteen books deal with questions of theology and juridical dialectics. His theological works, such as al-Ṣaḥāʾif al-ilāhiyya, tend to be voluminous, detailed and advanced. In contrast, his treatises on juridical dialectics are didactic – summarizing or explaining the existing literature.Footnote ¹¹ Because of their concise nature, they generated dozens of later glosses. In the last years of his life, his teaching career arrived at its summit in Khujand (Northern Tajikistan) where he taught many of his books.Footnote ¹²

Al-Samarqandī undertook the task of developing a general theory of scientific discussion that had a tremendous success and impact on later Muslim scholarship. Ādāb al-baḥth wa-al-munāẓara, as he called his art of disputation, is a set of formal and ethical rules of inquiry and debate, the origins of which go back mainly to logic and juridical jadal. Al-Samarqandī also had recourse to few theological elements. Al-Samarqandī anticipated questions about the reasons of his dialectical synthesis. In his Sharḥ al-Qusṭās, a work on logic, he explains that earlier philosophers used to include dialectics, jadal, a reference to the Topics, in their logical books. Since the juridical dialectics of ʿilm al-khilāf replaced logical dialectics (here he refers to the Ḥanafī tradition of juridical dialectics), he thought it appropriate, to introduce an art of disputation, qānūn fī ādāb al-baḥth, the tasks of which are to organize the dialectical procedure, tartīb al-baḥth, to examine the validity of the discourse, taqaṣṣī al-kalām and to preserve claims and objections from errors, ṣiyānat al-taqrīr wa-al-taḥrīr. He states that ādāb al-baḥth controls the discussion the same way logic controls thought.Footnote ¹³ Al-Samarqandī's aim to craft a general art of disputation that replaced both logic and juridical dialectics could not be created ex nihilo. Al-Samarqandī had to chart one of these paths: either to logicise juridical dialectics or to give logic a juridical character. Evidently, the first option was more feasible. He abstracted (trough logic) the specific art of disputation (juridical dialectics) which was in use around him. While owing much of his material to juridical dialectics, al-Samarqandī was able to give his discipline a logical character, making it sufficiently formalized to reach audiences beyond the jurists.

As in any synthesis, balance is hard to keep. L. B. Miller perceives in al-Samarqandī's enterprise the impact of logic on this final phase of dialectics in medieval Islam. While I concede that logical elements are at hand in his dialectics, I still maintain that his treatise of Ādāb al-baḥth is rather a dialectical synthesis between logic and juridical dialectics.

In his prologue to Risāla fī Ādāb al-baḥth, al-Samarqandī restates his motivation to initiate a new discipline. He asserts that his treatise seeks to help the student avoid the errors of the inquiry and the disputation. It could also assist him in understanding the others and communicating himself. He acknowledges that these rules are common among the verifiers, but did not exist in a single work.Footnote ¹⁴ In later medieval Islam, the verifiers are theologians and jurists of some philosophical background. Their prototype is usually Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī.

Subsequently, al-Samarqandī divides his new discipline into three sections: the first one on definitions, taʿrīfāt, the second deals with the sequence of the discussion, tartīb al-baḥth and the third illustrates his theory with three questions of debate selected from theology, philosophy and law. Al-Samarqandī admits that his contribution lies, merely, in the compilation of the rules of disputation and in the three examples of debates he provides as applied situations of the inquiry rules.Footnote ¹⁵ The examples themselves, as it will be shown, are common and do not display any originality.

Particularly in the section on definitions, one can observe the influence of logic. After all, examining the quality of definitions is a logical procedure. The use of the term taʿrīfāt itself to denote definitions is likely to have been popularized among the theologians and jurists by Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī in his Sharḥ ʿUyūn al-ḥikma (a commentary of Avicenna's ʿUyūn al-ḥikma) and Manṭiq al-Mulakhkhaṣ.Footnote ¹⁶ One can even trace the term taʿrīf, in its singular form, to a logician before Avicenna. Abū Naṣr al-Fārābī (d. 950) had already used the phrase “a definition of a thing”, taʿrīf al-shayʾ Footnote ¹⁷ in his commentary on Aristotle's Topics.

That said, the content of the terminological section of al-Samarqandī does not follow the logical structure of the same section in logical manuals neither uses the same terminology. The terms al-Samarqandī thought are essential to know in the new discipline are the following: munāẓara, disputation; dalīl, proof; madlūl, proved; amāra, sign; rukn, pillar; sharṭ, condition; ʿilla, legal cause; taʿlīl, ratiocination; mulāzama, correlation; dawarān, concomitance; munāqaḍa, exclusion; muʿāraḍa, counter-argumentation; naqḍ, invalidation; mustanad, the mainstay of the exclusion.Footnote ¹⁸ In fact, this list is an abbreviation of a longer one containing 120 terms used in juridical dialectics established by Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī.Footnote ¹⁹ Moreover, with the exception of the terms concomitance and correlation (which came to circulate widely among the jurists since al-Ghazzālī) none of these terms belong to the terminology of logic. Al-Samarqandī makes it clear that he builds his new discipline on juridical dialectics. His terms are borrowed to uṣūl al-fiqh.

However, al-Samarqandī exhibits the influence of logic in the way he defines these terms; using descriptions rather than definitions by genus and differentia, he offers the clearest and the shortest possible definition of each term. His definitions are widely-accepted among the jurists.

Yet, al-Samarqandī uses sāʾil, questioner, a term belonging to the philosophical vocabulary that does not appear on the list he defines in his introduction. To name the questioner's opponent, the respondent, al-Samarqandī does not use the term of jadal in Arabic logic, which is mujīb but muʿallil, literally ratiocinator, that is the person who established the legal cause of a statement. Al-Samarqandī appropriated this term from the jurists. The questioner can only raise his objection if the respondent moves from a simple statement to a reasoned one. Once the respondent wishes to establish a proof for his statement, the procedure of objection may take three forms:

1. 1. Either the questioner objects one of the premises constituting the proof of the respondent. This procedure is called exclusion, manʿ. It might be with or without mainstay, sanad. The questioner can simply say: “I object to this premise”, or choose to support his objection with a more substantiated objection such as: “I do not accept this argument, why is it not possible that the case is otherwise?”. Thus, the questioner makes a hypothesis that the respondent's claim might not be true. Casting doubt on the respondent's claim is all he could do at this stage. The questioner is forbidden to object with another claim, supported with a proof of its own. In case it happens, al-Samarqandī considers this a serious offence against the rules of disputation and would be inadmissible. Such irregularity is called ghaṣb, literarily an usurpation.Footnote ²⁰ The questioner usurps the right to argue to which only the respondent is entitled right now. This juridical term, originally applied for the usurpation of goods, indicates the juridical universe of reference to which belongs al-Samarqandī. Besides, it shows al-Samarqandī's concern with the scientific regularity of investigation and the rejection of confusion.

2. 2. The questioner invalidates the proof itself, dalīl. Here, invalidation, naqḍ is issued against the reasoning of the respondent, as it is the sum of the major and the minor premises. It consists in observing the inconsistency of the proof (the premises) to lead to the same proved (conclusion) in all cases. For al-Samarqandī, that in some cases the poof is not conclusive means that the proof itself is not sound. Since this type of objection refutes the entire proof, it is called integral invalidation, naqḍ ijmālī. Partial invalidation belongs, in fact, to the first type of objections, exclusion, manʿ as it invalidates parts of the proof (the premises taken here separately).Footnote ²¹

3. 3. The questioner accepts the proof (dalīl) but objects to the proved (madlūl). This procedure is called counter-argumentation, muʿāraḍa. In this case, the questioner's point is that, although the proof might indicate the proved, another proof could negate the same proved. Put in syllogistic terms, the questioner concedes that the premises lead to a given conclusion, but since the same premises (or other premises) can yield a different conclusion, the respondent's conclusion is contested. Once the questioner starts counter-arguing, he turns into a respondent and vice versa.Footnote ²²

That the same premises could lead to contradictory conclusions is not possible in a logician's system. However, this is acceptable in the realm of the jurist. For the latter, it is the essence of fiqh. Although the jurists refer to the same texts (the Qurʾān and sunna) as the main legal proofs, they differ with regard to legal interpretation and their outcomes. Counter-argumentation makes sense here. A jurist would argue that the same verse or tradition leads, in fact, to an opposing conclusion.

According to al-Samarqandī, the keystone in the debate sequence is the proof (dalīl) and the proved (madlūl). These terms are not used together in Arabic logic (although dalīl is used sometimes as a synonym of qiyās). Rather, they are used in Islamic legal theory and theology with slightly different meanings. In its legal sense, dalīl is a proof that includes transmitted, certain and uncertain rational proofs, while the proved is used interchangeably with ḥukm, judgment. Probably, the jurists took these terms from the theologians. In fact, the reasoning through dalīl/madlūl is attested first in kalām works. Theologians understood dalīl as an indicant and madlūl as the indicated. For example, a sign in the visible world would indicate the existence of an attribute of God in the unseen world.Footnote ²³ Al-Samarqandī's approach was to treat dalīl /madlūl as a syllogism in which dalīl is the set of premises and madlūl the conclusion. He is indebted in this to the juridical dialectics of al-Ghazzālī, al-Rāzī and al-Nasafī.

In debating propositions, the dialecticians of ādāb al-ba ḥth wa-al-munāẓara use a juristic terminology. However, in doing so, they endorse logical procedures. Whenever it comes to the verification of the validity of claims, ādāb al-baḥth wa-al-munāẓara depends on the Aristotelian logic. Such is the case in the assessment of the dialectical syllogism, qiyās jadalī about which al-Fārābī said it was used either for refutation (tabkīt) or counter-refutation, ʿinād. Tabkīt is a dialectical syllogism of the questioner who seeks to invalidate the respondent's position while ʿinād is a dialectical syllogism used by the respondent to invalidate the dialectical syllogism of the questioner.Footnote ²⁴ In this regard, instead of tabkīt and ʿinād, ādāb al-baḥth wa-al-munāẓara uses the terms of ifḥām and ilzām for the same purposes.Footnote ²⁵

These elements confirm once more the synthetic character of al-Samarqandī's achievement between the logical form and the juristic matter. The reason why ādāb al-baḥth wa-al-munāẓara employs a juristic terminology (or theological terms) for the logical procedures of evaluating an argument is effective communication. This discipline was born among the Ḥanafī jurists who continued a long tradition of dialectics for centuries. Any upgrading of their dialectical practice could be effective only if it builds on their tradition.

Among Muslim jurists, the source of this tendency to convert juristic analogy into syllogistic terms is most probably al-Ghazzālī. In dialectics, an objection relates to one of the premises of the syllogism, on the two premises or on the conclusion. In juristic analogy as understood by 10^th century jurists, the objection was either on the legal proof, dalīl or on the legal cause, ʿilla. Since, in an analogy, the legal cause is the main locus of divergence, the objection in disputations focused on it. Logic and juristic analogy were brought together by al-Ghazzālī whose work was favorably accepted by Muslim jurists. He believed in the equivalence of syllogisms and juristic analogies and converted the analogies into syllogistic terms. The syllogisms became “the form” of a legal proof while analogy remained its “matter”.Footnote ²⁶ In other words, syllogisization went hand in hand with the abstraction of juridical dialectics into a theory of disputation that is ādāb al-ba ḥth wa-al-munāẓara.

It has been claimed that al-Samarqandī found inspiration in two main sources: logic and juridical dialectics. While one might not call ādāb al-baḥth wa-al-munāẓara logical the same way one would call jadal of al-Fārābī logical, the latter commenting the terminology and the procedures described by Aristotle in his Topics. If by logic one means some logical elements and influences, there is no doubt that al-Samarqandī's art of disputation incorporates logic. Similarly, his reworking of juridical dialectics is considerable. He shortened the list of objections and terminology, standardised the dialectical procedure and abstracted it enough to cover theological and philosophical debates.

III. AL-ĪJĪ: THEOLOGY TRIUMPHANT

After al-Samarqandī's treatise, al-Ījī's Ādāb al-baḥth known also as Ādāb al-ʿAllāma ʿAḍud al-Dīn, enjoys a privileged place in the history of the discipline. Its particularity lies in its brevity, making it an ideal text for teaching the subject to students as it contains the essential of ādāb al-baḥth wa-al-munāẓara. He certainly draws on al-Samarqandī, but also differs from him in few elements with regard to quotations, didactic style and his exclusive emphasis on theology. Al-Ījī was a theologian par excellence and his version of ādāb al-baḥth wa-al-munāẓara largely reflects his inclinations.

It is important to know that al-Samarqandī discarded quotations in his Ādāb al-ba ḥth and deals only with statements. Al-Ījī starts his work with this point. If one quotes a claim, the transmission should conform to the conditions of authenticity. Transmission plays a more prominent role in juridical debates than in theological ones. This feature became more evident when theology took a philosophical turn. Thus, it could not be al-Ījī's theological tone or background that pushed him to introduce transmission. In fact, al-Samarqandī's examples are mostly theological. This difference between al-Samarqandī and al-Ījī could probably be explained by their audiences. Since al-Ījī addresses students who, in their early practice of debates, rely on transmission from books or authorities, he deemed it appropriate to teach them the rule of debate about transmissions.

Compared to al-Samarqandī, al-Ījī's introductory remarks display an ethical concern. As a founder, al-Samarqandī starts his text with a section on terminology to build the discipline on clear terms. Al-Ījī is rather concerned with the respect of the basic rules of disputation. If you utter a statement, al-Ījī addresses his interlocutor, you should fulfill authenticity if you transmit and evidence if you argue.Footnote ²⁷ Here, he reiterates a norm that was common in disputation literature, but the brevity of al-Ījī's formulation made it later a much cited quote. This conciseness could be seen as a training method of the students to learn referring and inducing evidence in their debates (or thinking as a whole).

In terms of objections, which form the core of ādāb al-baḥth wa-al-munāẓara, al-Ījī sticks to al-Samarqandī's trilateral categories: exclusion, invalidation and counter-argument. An exclusion, manʿ, consists in requesting a proof for the premises. How than could one object to a transmission or even to a claim (before producing a proof)? al-Ījī answers that exclusion should be called an objection in a figurative sense. The real exclusion presupposes that the respondent had already presented his proof. The exclusion of one of the premises of the respondent's proof takes two forms: either it is supported, sanad or goes without support, mujarrad (ʿan al-sanad). The support consists in establishing a probability that other claims are possible. In this case, the respondent can rebuttal if the exclusion establishes a probable premise that equals in truth the stated premise of the respondent.Footnote ²⁸

Next, al-Ījī concisely presents the two other objections, invalidation and counter-argument. Firstly, the questioner can invalidate the respondent's proof, using for invalidation the verb naqaḍa in the passive voice. He presents the most common form of invalidation which is invalidation by inconsistency, takhalluf. What the questioner does is to contest the premises as a whole. In this case, the respondent can use exclusion to contest one of the questioner's premises. Secondly, the questioner could contest the conclusion, using for counter-argument the verb ʿāraḍa in the passive voice. In the counter-argument, the questioner admits that the proof established by the respondent leads to the conclusion x, but that the questioner can produce another proof that lead to a contradictory conclusion. Therefore, the first conclusion is false. The respondent can reply by excluding one of the questioner's premises.Footnote ²⁹

Similarly to al-Samarqandī who offered three examples of debates from law, theology and philosophy to illustrate the dialectical procedure of ādāb al-ba ḥth wa-al-munāẓara, al-Ījī provides one example of a debate in theology. This tells us about al-Ījī's preference for kalām. The debate goes as follows. The respondent might state that God's speech is eternal, either quoting from the book of al-Maqāṣid Footnote ³⁰ or arguing by virtue of the proof that God ascribed speech to himself in Q. 4: 164 (and unto Moses God spoke directly).Footnote ³¹ The questioner might exclude this premise by recourse to the figurative meaning. That God spoke should not be understood as real speech. The respondent might rebuttal by contesting the figurative meaning: the real meaning of a word is the primary meaning and therefore the term speech should be understood in this sense. Then, the questioner might use the second type of objections, invalidation. He might say that God attributes to himself the creation, khalq of the world while creation is not an eternal divine attribute. Both creation and speech are abilities which relate to possible things. Therefore, the respondent's proof is inconsistent as it does not lead always to the same conclusion. In this case, the respondent might exclude the charge of inconsistency by way of a support: that there is a difference between creation and speech, namely that speech is not relative but essential, ḥaqīqī.Footnote ³² Finally, the questioner could counter-argue, stating that speech is the performance of contingent letters. If such is the case, God's speech cannot be eternal. The respondent might exclude the premise that speech is composed of contingent letters. To support this exclusion, the respondent could quote the poet al-Akhṭal who said:

In presenting his version of ādāb al-baḥth wa-al-munāẓara, al-Ījī's tone is obviously didactic and theological. It was meant to explain the discipline to an audience of students and not to the professionals of argumentation. Accordingly, he elaborates on objections in the shortest possible manner. Furthermore, al-Ījī's text is obviously marked by kalām. Transmission plays a major role in his text. This is nowhere more evident than in his illustration. While al-Samarqandī leaves the end of his debates open, al-Ījī endorses the standpoint of the respondent and pushes toward a conclusive end of the debate in favor of the Ashʿarī thesis.

IV. ṬĀSHKÖPRÜZĀDE'S ĀDĀB AL-BAḤTH WA-AL-MUNĀẒARA: THE MARK OF ETHICS

As the center of Ḥanafī learning moved westward to Ottoman lands, ādāb al-baḥth wa-al-munāẓara gained in visibility and recognition. That the Ottoman scholars contributed much to the development of this discipline can be seen through the numerous treatises and glosses written on this subject. Above all, Aḥmad b. Muṣṭafā Ṭāshköprüzāde's (d. 1561)Footnote ³³ treatise of Ādāb al-baḥth is the most influential and widely-spread among Ottoman contributions to the field. This book, mostly known as Ādāb al-Mawlā Abī al-Khayr was mentioned as a major treatise of the discipline by Ḥājjī Khalīfa (d. 1657). The latter described it as “a very useful and comprehensive compilation of the main topics of this discipline”.Footnote ³⁴ For this reason, it was edited several times to meet the needs of teaching centers throughout the Muslim world.

As clearly exemplified by Ṭāshköprüzāde's treatise of Ādāb al-baḥth, this discipline is a point of intersection linking ethics, logic and Islamic law. It maintains the core structure al-Samarqandī introduced, but adds an ethical component to it. In order to avoid repetition, I will not deal with the logical and the juridical elements here. Instead, I will explore how ethics of adab, a salient feature of classical Arabic literature and traditional Islamic ethics, marks Ṭāshköprüzāde's version of the discipline of ādāb al-baḥth.

In Ādāb al-ba ḥth, the term ādāb has connotations of both ethics and etiquette of debate.Footnote ³⁵ On the one hand, ādāb as ethics cover the moral conduct of debaters in accordance with Islamic norms. The latter are not necessarily traditional. Although there are indeed Muslim traditions of debate in good manners, many of the promoted rules in Ādāb al-baḥth stem from Greek and Persian wisdoms. On the other, ādāb also means the etiquette of councils, majālis – refined ways of behaving in front of a literate audience, usually of upper classes.

Failing to respect the rules of ādāb leads one to defeat in a debate. In order to protect the quality of the discussion and to prevent it from turning into an exchange of insults, curses and abuse, the debaters have the obligation to keep these rules. The insistence on maintaining ādāb rules indicates a serious worry about the real debates which are mere quarrels. Thus, instead of preventing it, disputation becomes a tool of conflict.

For Ṭāshköprüzāde, the main rules are the following:

1. 1. It is necessary for the debater to avoid conciseness and brevity in speech to assure understandability;

2. 2. it is necessary for the debater to avoid redundancy in speech which might lead to boredom;

3. 3. the debater must avoid strange words that might lead to any misunderstanding;

4. 4. the debater must not use ambiguous words in the discussion without providing any evidence that specifies the meaning of the used words;

5. 5. the debater should not respond to the questioner before he understands his thesis;

6. 6. going off-topic should be avoided as it leads to the expansion and the deviation of the discussion;

7. 7. it is forbidden to laugh and raise the voice during the debate;

8. 8. the debater should not dispute with anyone who inspires him fear or veneration which could weaken his mind and therefore his argument;

9. 9. the debater should not underestimate his questioner because this might lead him to respond weakly. Thus, the questioner could defeat him.Footnote ³⁶

The rules Ṭāshköprüzāde stipulates here are not mere pointless pedantry. They are fundamental elements of the debate process. Most of them can be traced back at least to three different albeit intermingling ethical sources. First, he draws on elements in Islamic ethics of good conduct, the best systematization of which is Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-Dīn of Abū Ḥāmid al-Ghazzālī (d. 1111). In his book, al-Ghazzālī severely criticized the way disputation was led in his time. For him, most debaters did not respect ethical rules nor collaborate in the pursuit of truth. Thus, in his Iḥyāʾ, he mentioned eight conditions that make the debate legitimate and ten anomalies that makes it immoral. For example, the seventh condition of al-Ghazzālī goes as follows: “the debater should not prevent his questioner from giving up an argument in favor of another and changing the question”. This is close to the fifth rule in Ṭāshköprüzāde's text which requires the questioner to give time to the respondent in stating the thesis. Both al-Ghazzālī and Ṭāshköprüzāde require that the questioner should not object to the respondent until the latter finishes his argument.

Furthermore, in his section on the anomalies of disputation that should be avoided, al-Ghazzālī warns against “rejoice in the injury of others”. This corresponds to rule seven in Ṭāshköprüzāde's treatise which forbids the debater to laugh and raise the voice. The ultimate objective of al-Ghazzālī and Ṭāshköprüzāde is to protect the debate from hecklings and disruptions. This is only possible if the respondent is given full respect and time to establish a thesis. Both authors aim to preserve the flow of argumentation and to make it an uninterrupted process.

A second probable source of Ṭāshköprüzāde's rules of conduct in disputation is Adab al-jadal, which regulate the theological debates as practiced among Muslim theologians in the 10^th century. A set of good manners of disputation similar to those mentioned by Ṭāshköprüzāde can be found in Adab al-jadal of Abū al-Ḥasan al-Ashʿarī (d. 935) as reported by Abū Bakr b. Fūrak (d. 1015). Most of Ṭāshköprüzāde's rules paraphrase those of al-Ashʿarī. For instance, rule eight in Ṭāshköprüzāde's book is borrowed from al-Ashʿarī who warns against debating in the councils of fear, majālis al-khawf.Footnote ³⁷ Additionally, several accounts show that Ibn al-Rāwandī (9^th century) (a possible source of al-Ashʿarī) and M. b. Idrīs al-Shāfiʿī (d. 820) also adopted a set of rules of conduct in debate. In intense juridical and theological environments, debates between nascent kalām and fiqh schools, were heated. Hence, some rules of debate were necessary. However, non-compliance with these manners in the theological debates were frequent, whether with non-Muslims or with other Muslim sects. In this regard, critical studies have shown that these manners were loose.Footnote ³⁸ To establish high standard norms of the theological debate, al-Ashʿarī made these rules of disputation compulsory upon the debaters.

Finally, a third probable source is the Arabic literary tradition, adab. Anthologies of Arabic literature often include literary councils of disputation which flourished above all in the Abbasid courts. Real or imagined, these councils were regulated by a code of behaviour. Several compilations of adab mention the etiquette of disputation in detail. It is true that some of its statements are slack and otiose, as one would expect in an entertaining milieu. However, some authors would require the debaters to engage in a discussion with the most scrupulous courtesy. Suffice here to refer to Muḥāḍarāt al-udabāʾ wa-muḥāwarāt al-shuʿarāʾ wa-al-bulaghāʾ of al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī (d. 1109). Aware of the pitfalls of literary debates, it cites several conditions of disputation such as self-control and modesty.Footnote ³⁹ The encroachment of Greek and Islamic references makes clear that for al-Rāghib al-Iṣfahānī the etiquette of debate was universal. This is by no means a disinterested motive. For, in the Abbasid courts, disputants were of different ethnic and religious backgrounds.