Qiyās al-Dalāla and Qiyās al-Shabah: al-Shīrāzī’s System of Correlational Inferences by Indication and Resemblance

Abstract

The present chapter examines al-Shīrāzī’s classification of correlational inferences by indication (qiyās al-dalāla) and resemblance (qiyās al-shabah) based on pinpointing specific relevant parallelisms between rulings or resemblances between properties. These forms of inferences, sometimes broadly referred to as arguments by analogy (or better by the Latin denomination arguments a pari) are put into action when there is absence of knowledge of the occasioning factor grounding the application of a given ruling. These forms of correlational inferences should make the process of transferring the relevant juridical ruling from the root-case to the branch-case plausible. The plausibility of a conclusion attained by parallelism between rulings (qiyās al-dalāla) is considered to be of a higher epistemic degree than the conclusion obtained by resemblances based on sharing properties (qiyās al-shabah). Conclusions obtained by either qiyās al-dalāla or qiyās al-shabah have a lower degree of epistemic plausibility than conclusions inferred by the deployment of qiyās al-‘illa.