Buruqlus Proclus (410-485 B.

Buruqlus Proclus (410-485 B.C.): Neoplatonic philosopher and saint, regarded as the last great teacher of (the Hegel) of Neoplatonism. He wrote extensive commentaries on Plato’s and Aristotle’s works. His Elements of Theology, a work on Platonic theology, partly translated into Arabic and re-arranged under the title Kitab al-khair al-Mahd (q.v.) was ascribed by the Muslim philosophers to Aristotle.

Barminidus Parmenides (6th -5th century B.C.): head of the Eleatic school of Greek philosophy; classical exponent of monism. Reality for him is Being which is a plenum filling all space and reaming constant. Empty space or void cannot be. Non-Being, becoming, or creation is impossible. Multiplicity, change and time are illusions. Zeno (Zainun al-Akbar, q.v.), his famous pupil, offered a defence of this block-reality philosophy in terms of his famous paradoxes.

burhan The term is used in philosophy in various slightly different senses: (1) mode of argumentation; (2) the argument itself; and (3) the manifest evidence or proof of a convincing argument -in this last sense the term is also used in the Qur’an (4:174; 12:24). al-Burhan The Arabic title given to Aristotle’s fourth book on logic, viz. Analytica Posteriora or the Second Analytics. See Analutiqa Thani.

al-burhan al-inni The mode of reasoning which proceeds from effect to cause; as "a proof that a thing is", it starts from the particular fact which is given or is perceived and infers the cause or reason of its existence; also called technically istidlal (q.v.) as opposed to ta‘lil (q.v.) al-burhan al-tatbiqi A mode of argument employed to disprove the possibility of the infinite regress of causes as, for example, in the cosmological argument for the existence of God; more generally the term denotes the impossibility of the infinite series of any successive sequence of events in the past or in the future.

al-burhan al-khatabi The rhetorical argument based on premisses of the kind of maqbulat (q.v.) and maznunat (q.v.). See also al-qiyas al-khatabi. al-burhan al-siddiqin "The argument of the truthful ones", i.e. a kind of teleological argument employed by the prophets and saints, which much like al-burhan al-inni (q.v.), starts from the signs of God, manifest in the natural phenomena and in men’s own selves, and thereby establish the existence of God.

al-burhan al-qati‘ Decisive proof or apodictic demonstration. See al-burhan al-mutlaq.