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In Islamic philosophy, logic played an important role. Islamic law placed importance on formulating standards of argument, which gave rise to a novel approach to logic in Kalam, but this approach was displaced by ideas from Greek philosophy with the rise of the Mutazilite philosophers, who valued highly Aristotle's Organon. The work of Greek influenced Islamic philosophers were crucial in the reception of Greek logic in medieval Europe, and the commentaries on the Organon by Averroes, as well as the works of Avicenna who often corrected Aristotle, played a central role in the subsequent medieval European logic.

According to the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy:

For the Islamic philosophers, logic included not only the study of formal patterns of inference and their validity but also elements of the philosophy of language and even of epistemology and metaphysics. Because of territorial disputes with the Arabic grammarians, Islamic philosophers were very interested in working out the relationship between logic and language, and they devoted much discussion to the question of the subject matter and aims of logic in relation to reasoning and speech. In the area of formal logical analysis, they elaborated upon the theory of terms, propositions and syllogisms as formulated in Aristotle's Categories, De interpretatione and Prior Analytics. In the spirit of Aristotle, they considered the syllogism to be the form to which all rational argumentation could be reduced, and they regarded syllogistic theory as the focal point of logic. Even poetics was considered as a syllogistic art in some fashion by most of the major Islamic Aristotelians.

Since logic was viewed as an organon or instrument by which to acquire knowledge, logic in the Islamic world also incorporated a general theory of argumentation focused upon epistemological aims. This element of Islamic logic centred upon the theory of demonstration found in Aristotle's Posterior Analytics, since demonstration was considered the ultimate goal sought by logic. Other elements of the theory of argumentation, such as dialectics and rhetoric, were viewed as secondary to demonstration, since it was held that these argument forms produced cognitive states inferior in certitude and stability to demonstration. The philosopher's aim was ultimately to demonstrate necessary and certain truth; the use of dialectical and rhetorical arguments was accounted for as preparatory to demonstration, as defensive of its conclusions, or as aimed at communicating its results to a broader audience.

Important developments in Islamic philosophy include the development of a strict science of citation, the isnad or "backing", and the development of a scientific method of open inquiry to disprove claims, the ijtihad, which could be generally applied to many types of questions.

Despite the logical sophistication of Al-Ghazali, the rise of the Asharite school in the late Middle Ages slowly suffocated original work on logic in the Islamic world.

• Ibn Sina
• Al-Farabi
• Averroes (Ibn Rushd)
• Al-Ghazali

• Logic
• History of logic

• Logic in Islamic philosophy, Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Routledge, 1998. (Alternatively, see Logic in Islamic philosophy)
• Ancient Islamic (Arabic and Persian) Logic and Ontology, at Raul Corazzon's Ontology. A resource guide for philosophers.

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