Alhassanain(p) Network for Heritage and Islamic Thought

3 A community oriented description of Islam

Who belongs to Islam, and what themes and activities can be called Islamic? These questions are supposed to have some kind of an answer as soon as one starts writing about Islamic Finance or about Islamic Logic. The simplest option is to assume that Islam is a well-known notion provided with useful definitions elsewhere so that the matter need not be discussed in further detail. That assumption seems tounderly much writing in these areas but I doubt its validity. Below I will provide a description of the extension of Islam which yields a reasonably explicit criterion allowing to assess to what extent an approach to finance may be called Islamic and to what extent a contemporary approach to logic deserves being labeled (Real) Islamic.15

It is assumed that at any moment of time Islam consists of a collectionIt of persons with 720 t. This setIt needs to be identified for various t. A sequence of 8 sets of persons It 0, It 1, It 2, It 3, It 4, It 5, It 6 and It 7 will be defined, each less inclusive. These sets change in time, for instance because the deceased must be deleted from each set in which they have been included at the time of their death. New persons can enter for the first time at all stages except stage 6 and 7. Only death removes persons from the set I0. Members can move up and down through the various levels this hierarchy so to speak.

By means of this sequence a reasonably precise definition of who belongs to Islam at time t can be provided. This nested series of sets can also be used to determine when an activity can be called Islamic. Thus at any instant of time t the sets have a specific extension It n with0 n 7 each consisting of persons living at time t, with It n It n+1

for 0 n < 7.

At any time Islam will mean one of the setsIt n, however with It 5 constituting the default extension of Islam. If another extension is meant that must be mentioned explicitly.

Why is this relevant? For instance, even after having read extensively about Islamic Finance one may still wonder: what justifies the label Islamic for these financial activities?16 Can someone, at least in principle, define his or her own system of Islamic Finance (or of Islamic Logic) as a theoretical project in a Northern European University carried out by non-muslims , or is such a state of affairs impossible by definition?

None of these questions can be given a reliable answer if no extension of Islam and of points of view “held by Islam” is known, and the objective of this section is to make some progress on that matter. Unfortunately but not uncharacteristically we will make use of sources that are not full in agreement with one-another. Except for the design of the sets It 0−7, and except for issues concerning Islamic Finance, the knowledge of Islam used in this section has been taken mainly from the following sources Armstrong [3], Donner [14], and Esposito [18].

Donner’s book, proposes an intriguing and attractive picture of the prophet Muhammad and his contemporaries, organized as a community of believers, until the creation of Islam some 80 years after the death of the prophet. He departs from the conventional picture as sketched by Armstrong. Esposito forcefully argues against North American prejudice. He bases his arguments on several international survey studies, conducted by Gallup, about the opinions held by members of Islam regarding a range of issues. In terms of the sequence It 0−7 that will be defined in more detail below, I guess that Esposito describes the result of interviews of members of the stage I5 in that listing. Supporters of the 9-11 attacks have been included in the reported polls, but there is no quantitative information provided in [18] about the coverage of the distribution of questionnaires over the different streams within Islam that Esposito intends to distinguish.

3.1 Extension independent aspects of Islam

As stated above our objective is to shed light on the following: who belongs to Islam (the extension of Islam), what are Islamic points of view, what qualifies an approach or method as Islamic. We begin with an “axiom”.

AXIOM 1: What Islam has to say about a topic T is entirely and exclusively determined by the points of view of those persons who currently are to be considered as belonging to Islam.

This axiom has several implications which are rather independent of time and for that reason from the actual extension of the membership of Islam:

• Islam’s view concerning T, if it exists at all, can change over time.

• Islam’s view on T cannot be discovered exclusively by reading old sources.

• During the life of the prophet Muhammad Islam did not yet exist, the Qur’an for that reason, assuming that it coincides with Muhammad’s spoken words, is not an immediate source for “Islamic viewpoints”.

• In most cases (that is for most T) some kind of “voting”, either explicit or implicit will be required to arrive at an Islamic viewpoint about topic T.

• Islam is entirely man made, even if its sources may have been be revealed.

• Confirmation of the revealed status at time t of the original sources is part of becoming a member of the set It 0

• The construction of Islam is an ongoing process with revealed sources and their continuous interpretation playing a very important role.

• The elevation around the year 720 of Muhammad’s oral tradition, after its written compilation (perhaps around the year 650), to the status of the primary revealed source of Islam has been an extremely successful conscious design decision that went into the construction of Islam. Further successful design decisions were to come.

• Design decisions about Islam are exclusively taken by members of Islam. Such design decisions are just points of view about certain topics turned into assertions that must be confirmed by new members of stages 5 and 6. In terms of the hierarchy of sets such a decision can adapt the bundle of points of view adhered to by mainstream communities and for that reason incorporation of a decision may reduce the number of mainstream communities (thus moving their members back from level 6 to level 5.)

• Who belongs to Islam, is exclusively decided by members of Islam, and this cannot be undone retrospectively, that is who belongs to Islam at time t will always belong to Islam at time t′ > t though perhaps at a different level of the stratification.

3.2 A stratified membership description

In order to gain insight in the extension of Islam at an arbitrary moment in time an axiom is used that allows for a layered decomposition of its membership.

AXIOM 2. Islam provides unity in diversity. For membership of Islam distinguish 7

levels can be distinguished, which are incrementally more demanding.

ABBREVIATION: V is used as an abbreviation of the following vow: “God is the only god and Muhammad is his most prominent and most recent prophet”.

Retrospective subjective members. It 0 consists of those (living) people who have at some time r t expressed V (with or without the presence of witnesses).

According to some It 0 coincides exactly with members of Islam at time t. What can be held against this viewpoint is that persons may be insufficiently aware of the consequences when making the vow V.

Members of It 0 may be members of other religions as well (usually only after revoking vowV ) .17

Subjective members. It 1 consists of the members of It 0 who have not revoked their vow V since asserting it.

It 1 is disjoint with Judaism, all Christian religions, and with most religions from India, Japan, China. It 1 is a well-known separator in topological terms and it can be used as a definition of Islam if atheistic (who do not accept the concept of god) andzerotheistic (who acknowledge the concept of god but are in addition of the opinion that currently no god exists) persons are not taken into account.

Conscious subjective members. It 2 consists of the members of It 1 who are at time t willing to renew the vow V.

Active members. It 3 consists of the members of It 2 who (at time t) perform conventional religious tasks (regular prayer, regular gifts to the poor, making a journey to Mecca), Community members. It 4 consists of members of It 3 who perform their conventional religious tasks in the context of and in accordance with a community of persons all members of It 3, Thus It 3 is the union of a collection of communities each made up from members of It 3.

No attempt is made to decompose communities intosubcommunities . Doing so may be important for various purposes. It leads to a partially ordered refinement of the proposed stratification.

Traditional community members. It 5consists of the members of those communities that constitute It 4 of which the members are (collectively) aware of:

• a package of viewpoints collectively considered a consequence of Islam (though in fact often only in their specific community), • a line of descent in terms of communities from the initial phase of Islam, • a line of descent in terms of packages of viewpoints (the community lineage consists of a sequence of communities and intervals of their existence; it must be equipped with a package of viewpoints held during each of these phases). This theological lineage must have significant explanatory value for the community’s current positions.

Mainstream traditional community members. It 6 comprises (the union of) a collection of communities who have decided that they are among the mainstream communities accounted for in stage 5, while other communities have been left out. The different communities at this level may share:

•some beliefs (neutral assertions), • some elements of orthopraxy, • some objectives concerning thepreferrered development towards a next stage of the community’s existence.

For a reliable demarcation of It 6 as a subset of It 5 it is necessary that the entire genealogy of branching communities composing It 5 is assessed with a degree of centrality within Islam. This is a matter of sociology and group structure and group interconnection analysis rather than a matter of deciding about the centrality of viewpoints.

Anyhow, It 6 singles out the mainstream communities from the marginal,excentric and extremist communities.18

Mainstream based forward movers. It 7 consists of selected members of various communities existing at level It 6, who actively perform Jihad and in various ways are quite visible at least within the membership of It 5 and perhaps also outside It 5 and even outside It 0. Here Jihad may take various forms, for instance:

• spreading the word, • living a life with visible piety, which may be convincing for others.

• developing innovative activities that allow groups of persons to perform their life compatible with a package of viewpoints held by their community as mentioned in the specification of It 5.

3.3 Qualification of views and activities

Having dealt with the classification of individuals and groups the classification of activities and viewpoints can be put on a reasonably firm footing.19

DEFINITION 1. An assertion belongs to the points of view of Islam if some community as mentioned in the definition of It 5 adheres to the assertion.20

DEFINITION 2. An assertion belongs to the points of view of mainstream Islam if some community as mentioned in the definition of It 6 adheres to the assertion.

DEFINITION 3. An assertion belongs to the shared points of view of Islam if a large majority (over 75%) of communities as mentioned in the definition of It 5 adheres to the assertion.

DEFINITION 4. An assertion belongs to the shared points of view of mainstream Islam if a large majority (over 75%) of communities as mentioned in the definition of It 6 adheres to the assertion.

DEFINITION 5. A theory, methodology or system can be called Islamic if it is endorsed by at least one community included in It 5. It is a mainstream Islamic theory, method or system, if it is endorsed by one of the communities constituting It 6. It is shared (or shared mainstream) if it is endorsed by a significant (over 75%) of communities of It 5, respectively of It 6.

Here are some examples of the use of these definitions.

• That a woman should not be driving a car is a point of view of mainstream Islam.

• That a woman is allowed to drive a car is a point of view of mainstream Islam.

• That drinking alcohol must be avoided is a shared point of view of Islam.

• That non-Islamic (or rather outside I2) western civilians can be aggressively attacked is a non-shared, non-mainstream point of view of Islam.

• That the poor should be supported is a shared point of view of Islam.

• That interests on loans should neither be paid nor collected is a non-shared point of view of mainstream Islam. The support for this point of view is growing, however, and it may well become a shared point of view of mainstream Islam in the next 100 years.

Some further consequences of the stratified definition of Islam can be mentioned:

•from outside It 2, on cannot design a system of Islamic finance, by definition, unless appropriateendorsment is obtained. (This is the impact of definition 5.)

• The set of points of view of Islam is inconsistent, mainly because viewpoints that stem from more than one community are taken into account.

• In fact even the family of shared points of view of mainstream Islam is not protected against logical inconsistency. But that is a matter related to the fact that majority voting processes can lead outside logical validity, which is generally a fact of social choice theory unspecific for Islam.

• Given this layered architecture of Islam it is not even difficult to design (by way of a thought experiment) a package of LinkedIn groups which allow to capture all of Islam as well as the dynamics of its constituting communities as dedicated (an perhaps preferably closed) LinkedIn groups. That requires 1.500.000.000 persons to be covered by LinkedIn, which is rapidly becoming technologically feasible. Leaving aside legal and political objections before long large movements like Islam can be entirely covered by social media, at least in principle.

• Islam has held inconsistent views since its earliest days. Both Christianity and Islam may be in part understood in terms of their coming to grips with an event of political assassination of a major figure (Jesus, andUthman respectively). A major distinction between these religions arises, however, from that fact that Islam has kept both sides of this deep moral dilemma21 within its ranks (an even within the mainstream communities composing stage It 6), whereas all of Christianity has taken side for the victim of the assassination so to speak.

• The logic used by Islam, if any, is aparaconsistent propositional logic. Many forms ofparaconsistent logic have been developed since 1900 andill require an extensive study to find out which version fits best.22 The Roman Catholic Church on the other hand has made an attempt to live up to a consistent logic. For the union of Christian churches and their collective points of view findingaparaconsistent logic is also the best one can hope for, while for particular churches the search for full consistency has been important. That has led to fragmentation and diversity in Christianity to which Islam seems to be less prone due to its principled compatibility with localinconsistencies, that is by its ability to settle for mere pragmaticparaconsistency .

Paraconsistent logics are notmainstream in the west. This is remarkable, because removing local inconsistencies is as difficult as anywhere else. I believe that “western” scientific paradigms tend to develop into completions of consistent subsets of originallyparaconsistent theories, this process leading to a fragmentation not unlike the religious fragmentation just mentioned.

Now we all know that if a mother asserts that her child C needs to sleep at 8 PM while its father insists that it may stay awake until 9 PM both may successfully and consistently agree that it must wake up next morning at 7.30 AM, expecting that the latter goal will be aimed at unconfused by the parental disagreement about the preferred timing of C’s going to bed. Making sense of this situation requiresaparaconsistent logic of parental behavior, however.

• Finally the classification mechanism can be applied to the main theme of this paper.

– Doing applied research on a particular system of Islamic Finance constitutes an Islamic activity and it requires being a member of stage 5 or beyond at least.

– Making proposals for systems of Islamic Finance is not necessarily an Islamic task (that is it can be done by individuals who are not stage-0 members.)

– Labeling a proposed financial system as a system of Islamic Finance can only be done by a group of members of stage 5 together representing at least one of its communities.

– Doing applied work within Real Islamic Logic is a task only accessible for members of stage 5 or beyond.

– Drafting proposals for real Islamic Logic is accessible to non-members of stage 0. (It is not always an Islamic activity.)

Besides questioning to what extent it is reasonable to label activities in finance and logic as Islamic, one may consider this matter from the other extreme position: which processes, tasks and entities can be called Islamic, and more generally can be labeled with a religious identity. I will dwell on that matter briefly below merely coming to the conclusion that matters are far from clear.

3.4 Some reflection on the use of a religious adjective

I will now confront the question whether or not a seemingly neutral theme like finance or logic might be provided with the adjective “Islamic” or with any other religious adjective.

By way of example I will consider the adjective “Roman catholic” (in the remainder of this section abbreviated to catholic) instead of the adjective Islamic. Consider the catholic priest John active in a rural area, who administers a parish P, who owns a horse H and who regularly serves the mass in ”his” church C. In addition he is in charge of school S.

It seems rather absurd to label horse H Roman catholic merely because it is owned by a catholic priest. An object or structure X being catholic must say something significant about X itself, merely a reference to an owner is definitely not sufficient.

3.4.1 Religious labeling of material objects, books, theories and thoughts

So what about the school. If the horse cannot be catholic can the bricks and glass constituting the school be catholic? It seems more plausible to assume that the term “school” must be disambiguated, because it refers both to an organization, which might be labeled catholic, and to a physical building which is used by this organization, the building being less amenable to a religious adjective. For the church building the same remark may apply: as a building it is hardly amenable to an application of the adjective catholic, whereas the community making use of the church is plausibly labeled catholic.

But where is this reductionist strategy leading to. The organization running the school and the community constituting the parish (and making use of the church) can be labeled catholic merely because the members of these groups are considered catholic. But that is obviously insufficient, because if these organizations/communities are to be perceived as catholic, besides a constraint on their membership this also imposes the requirement of having acquired an adequate accreditation by the local catholic bishop, acting on behalf of the catholic pope. This brings us reasonably close to the definition of a catholic school (or parish).

One may then consider a book with catholic religious hymns used in church C. Is this book with hymns catholic, and if not is the collection of hymns itself catholic, or is it merely a neutral tool for an activity performed by a catholic community. Similarly a book may contain the catechism of thecatholic church , which is not to say that the book itself is catholic.

Finally one may face the question to what extent a body of ideas can be considered catholic. This leads to the specific question whether or not the catholic faith (as a collection of ideas) is itself catholic. If not then X being catholic is not even a precondition for “catholic X” to make sense. If so, then that faith constitutes a body of ideas which is rightfully labeled catholic. Alternatively one might also hold that “catholic faith” rather than referring to something catholic specifies someone’s state of mind which then might be considered catholic. That state of mind is not amenable toepiscopal accreditation, however, neither is any other property a person inherits from his or her state of mind.

Summarizing these considerations I conclude that the question “when can an X be called Islamic” is quite difficult to answer but this difficulty is not specific for Islam, but rather independent from Islam. Further for a specific theme or these T the question “can T be called Islamic” can be analyzed in sociological terms by making use of the layered stratification of its extension. Application of these matters is not at all obvious, however. The question “is the Qur’an an Islamic text” indicates some of the complications involved. The answer to this question may be negative if one thinks of Qur’an primarily in the time of its writing but it may be positive when it is analyzed in terms of its much later reception. So it appears that the latter question is insufficiently specific to allow for a definite answer.

3.4.2 An instrumental view on the label Islamic

The simplest way to appreciate Real Islamic Logic and Islamic Finance is to assume that logic and finance get colored in religious terms because of the intended application. An instrument used for Jihad may be labeled an Islamic instrument, even if it might be used alternatively for the opposite purpose just as well.

This convention being somewhat unsatisfactory I suggest that an instrument might be labeled Islamic (mainstream Islamic) if the following three (four) criteria are met:

•it is used for Jihad, using a very liberal and preferably non-violent interpretation of that term, and, • it is specific (or has been designed specifically) for that particular use, and, • if the previous observations are confirmed by an uncontested group of leading figures in a stage 5 (or higher) community.

• (If the confirmation is provided by a stage 6 (or 7) community it is a mainstream Islamic instrument.)

Given this convention about using Islamic as a label, some further remarks can be made considering the plausibility of religious labeling in various circumstances, now rendered specifically for Islam:

• A recent copy of the Qur’an is a (mainstream) Islamic book (instrument for distributing information, whereas its content has been transformed from non-Islamic to Islamic around the year 720.

• At second inspection the decisive argument that horse H above can’t be labeled Roman catholic lies in the fact that H is in no way specific for the catholic faith, although the way he is used may be dedicated towards strengthening that particular religion. This same argument generalizes to all animals.

• A person is Islamic if he or she is a member of Islam. This is a matter of degree in accordance with the stratification.

• No animal and no natural location can be Islamic. Except for persons only artifacts (including their abstract designs) can plausibly be labeled Islamic.

• Islamic Finance is a plausible term because the particular form of finance is supposed to satisfy the four criteria mentioned above. In fact it may be labeled a mainstream Islamic activity.

• If the design of Real Islamic Finance is sufficiently specific and its intended application is sufficiently compatible with some form of Jihad that will validate the use of the phrase given the mentioned criteria.

•the introduction of RIL in this paper does not qualify as an Islamic activity.

4 Comparing Real Islamic Logic and Islamic Finance

Before working out a specific proposal for Real Islamic Logic in some detail, that notion which is transpiring in an abstract or distant formalready, will be compared to Islamic Finance which has been used since around the year 1930 onwards. This comparison is supposed to be helpful for developing an understanding of what RIL can be given a perspective on Islamic Finance.

After that comparison the companion notions Crescent-star Finance and Crescent-star Logic will be briefly compared.

4.1 Comparing IF and RIL in some detail

It has been argued that whether or not the label Roman catholic can be assigned to some concept is a difficult matter and that difficulty is similar for the adjective Islamic.

Nevertheless some convention has been formulated and that convention underlies the understanding of the adjective Islamic in the sequel of this paper. I will now make an attempt to highlight in detail some important merits and demerits of the phrase Islamic Finance while contrasting it with Real Islamic Logic.

1. As I have noticed already above Islamic Finance seems not to be used in existing literature with the historic bias which is dominantly assumed for Islamic Logic.

2. I briefly consider Islamic Astronomy. That has a historic connotation by default.

One might seek for a modern version of it “Modern Islamic Astronomy” or even aJihadic form“ Real Islamic Astronomy” (or a movement with similar objectives).

None of these exist because Modern Islamic Astronomy is simply Astronomy.

3. There is no contemporary Islamic Astronomy for the simple reason that conventional astronomy is entirely acceptable from an Islamic perspective. Real Islamic Logic may be considered meaningless in the same way as contemporary Islamic Astronomy is. Likewise some hold Islamic Finance to be a self-contradictory notion. However, these arguments are flawed because although Islam suggests no alternative ways for pursuing astronomy, Islamic Finance definitely involves a rather specific set of financial conventions and the logic for Islamic Finance may be designed quite specifically as a customized toolbox for applications in an Islamic context. A similar argument can be put forward concerning RIL.

4. The logic involved in Real Islamic Logic can be pursued both in a philosophical style and in a more formalist style. At least for philosophical logic the potential to work in anIslamization oriented mode cannot be ruled out as easily as for instance for physics and mathematics.

5. Islamic Finance is a successful intellectual construction that could have originated outside Islam in theory (not what actually happened, it was a mainstream Islamic development). Pursuing Islamic Finance is by definition a matter formuslims only.

6. A significant result of Islamic Finance is the appearance of Arabic terms and concepts in the financial world. A similar development is not to be expected from the pursuit ofReal Islamic Logic.23 About this phenomenon the following can be said:

• The appearance of Arabic jargon in the financial world cannot simply be understood as a consequence ofIslamization , in the same way as the appearance of English in many areas of activity is not a symptom of Christianization. It merely indicates the importance of Arab speaking authors and financial workers in the pursuit of Islamic Finance.24

• Islam has Arabic language as a major carrier of its cultural sources in very much the same way (though significantly more pronounced) as Christianity has (medieval) Latin as a source. I am assuming that conceptually Islam can and must be separated from Arabic.25

• Not only language and religion must be separated but to some extent history and language need separation as well. For instanceShari’ah may be replaced by “Islamic Legal Process” and that replacement immediately removes potential misunderstandings. For instance one may think that extremely harsh punishments are characteristic forShari’ah ignoring the fact that the local history of some well-known traditions of the Islamic Legal Process have developed in nomadic societies where imprisonment was not considered a practical option and punishment of an instantaneous form was more easily applicable. In different conditions, however, the Islamic Legal Process leads to different ways of dealing with undesirable behavior.

• It is quite difficult to translate classical Arabic terms into English. For instancegharrar (accepting an excessive downside risk) is forbidden in Islamic Finance but explanations of this limitation invariably involve digressions into the meaning of the termgharrar . The concept of Islamic Finance should not be allowed the degree of freedom to proclaim thatgharrar is forbidden whatever it means so to say, thus leaving those who don’t master Arabic uninformed about which behavioral limitation is imposed by means of this proclamation.26

7. Currently Real Islamic Logic may be considered to be about as plausible or implausible as Islamic Economics with the difference that the phrase Islamic Economics is widely used. In spite of being often mentioned Islamic Economics has not really come off the ground except for its specialized financial branch.

8. Islamic Finance acquires significant visibility and profile from a single assumption namely the prohibition of interests. Opinions about the foundations of this prohibition vary from a fully religious grounding (promising no economic advantages compliant with Islamic social objectives) to a fully economic grounding (expecting that this prohibition will contribute significantly to the reduction of phenomena of individual hardship27 and of structural crisis). At a closer inspection Islamic Finance is based on a combination of restrictions amongst which interest prohibition is only the most well-known ingredient. These other restrictions are:

• Avoidance of excessive downside risks.

• Non-reliance on excessive upside chances (gamble).

• Sold items must exist at the time of transaction (but payment may be deferred).

• All parties involved in a sales transaction must have comparable and complete information about what is being sold.

• Parties involved in a financial transaction may not be forced into participation.

9. Real Islamic Logic has no counterpart to the dogma of interest prohibition. That is no single element carries significantly more visibility than other elements. If any counterpart to the above concise specification of Islamic Finance must be found it consists of a cluster of elements for which the following listing may be a candidate:

• Inconsistencies abound, andparaconsistency is the best one may aim for. In particular:

– Revealed sources are a fundamental source of the body universally quantified assertions from which reasoning must take place.

– The totality of revealed sources is not claimed to be consistent. (Many inconsistent subsets may exist.) Informed scholars must resolve contradictions when needed.

– Original eye-witness accounts produce evidence, and so do indirect testimonies.

These may have higher priority than the original source facts these accounts are commenting upon. This also holds if the source facts are understood in a metaphoric fashion.Proximity in time to the causes of creation of the original sources (for instance measured by means of counting number of intermediate witnesses) increases confidence.

– Science (including logic and mathematics) may produce valid assertions which may be inconsistent with revealed sources. Scientific fact wins out against revealed fact, moving the latter into a metaphoric status, which is then in need of explanation by interpreting scholars.

– A improved level of knowledge of science may lead to modified assertions to which a higher degree of confidence is assigned.Ordinary resolution of inconsistencies amongst scientific results.

• Distributed and autonomous humanjudgement performed by groups of informedscholars plays and will play a major role in legal decision making which may overrule at any time all formalized deduction from acquired database of accepted legal assertions. As a consequence:

– Islamic legal reasoning cannot become outdated, it is essentially a contemporary phenomenon, and, – the Islamic Legal Process proceeds concurrently at different locations and different courts may judge quite differently about similar cases at the same time,28 and, – logic is supposed to be supportive of this mechanism and must not in any way be construed as an “objective” replacement of conscious group decision making by informed scholars.

• Resolution of contradictions makes use of geographically based priorities, with local Islamic courts having more impact than distant ones,29 recent courtjudgements have more relevance than older ones of the same court.30

• Altogether Real Islamic Logic deals with (at least) eight priority mechanisms at the same time:

– priority of science over revelation, – priority of improved science over previous scientific findings, – priority of confirmed interpretation (if sources are understood metaphorically) over revelation, – priority of direct witness reports over indirect ones, – priority of propositions put forward by highly regarded scholars over propositions produced by less highly regarded ones, – priority of propositions put forward by directly involved (concerning the issue at hand) individual scholars overjudgements made by individual scholars from a more distant position, – priority of recent courtjudgements over olderjudgements of the same court, – priority of nearby (physically or community wise) courtjudgements over more distant ones.

As it stands human decision making is essential to balance the relative weights that must be assigned to these different priorities.31

The simultaneous presence of a number of priority mechanisms renders Real Islamic Logic astonishingly complex but it constitutes no reason not to analyze its working in detail, on the contrary, it suggest that much work can be done.

4.2 Comparing Crescent-star Finance and Crescent-star Logic

Crescent-star Logic stands for Real Islamic Finance stripped from its political and religious objectives. Similarly Crescent-star Finance is Islamic Finance stripped from its religious, political and ideological objectives. Both themes can be contemplated and advanced by non-muslims . There is a difference, however, because for a non-muslim Islamic Finance represents a reasonable comprehensible deviation from conventional finance and the effect of adherence to that deviation can be investigated in an impartial way both in theory by way of making use of thought experiments and in practice by means of observation of real or of artificial (that is experimental) economic processes.

Work on Crescent-star Finance may, at least in principle, reveal weak points concerning Islamic Finance that need to be taken into account bymuslims pursuing Islamic Finance in its full meaning. It may also lead to the discovery of new financial products which Islamic scholars are likely to consider morally adequate (halal ).

At this early stage Crescent-star Logic is a hypothetical matter altogether because the inclusion and exclusion of formal techniques as well as philosophical methods for Real Islamic Logic needs to be worked out from an application perspective. Nevertheless a stage can be imagined where Crescent-star Logic can be abstracted from real Islamic Logic in way comparable to the way logic programming has been obtained from programming in PROLOG.