■ Map shows the concentration of the followers of the various schools of thoughts in Islam. The Shafi'i school of thought is indicated by the colour blue.
Abu Abdillah Muhammad ibn Idris al-Shafi‘i is the reference point for the Shafi'i school of thought in Islam. The foundations of his fiqh (jurisprudence) are in his Risala, which he said he revised and re-read four hundred times, then said: "Only Allah's Book is perfect and free from error."
Imam al-Shafi'i was the cousin of the Prophet Muhammad, peace and blessing be upon him - descending from al-Muttalib who is the brother of Hashim, the father of Abd al-Muttalib, the Prophet's grandfather.
Someone praised the Banu Hashim in front of the Prophet Muhammad, whereby he interlaced the fingers of his two hands and said: "We and they are but one and the same thing."
Imam al-Nawawi listed three peculiar merits of al-Shafi'i: his sharing the Prophet's lineage at the level of their common ancestor Abd Manaf; his birth in the Holy Land of Palestine and upbringing in Makkah; and his education at the hands of superlative scholars together with his own superlative intelligence and knowledge of the Arabic language.
Early life
Al-Shafi'i was born in Ghazzah (Palestine) or Asqalan in 150 after Hijrah (767 CE), the year of Abu Hanifah's death, and moved to Makkah at the age of two, following his father's death, where he grew up.
He was early a skillful archer, then he took to learning language and poetry until he gave himself to fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence), beginning with hadith. He memorized the Qur'an at age seven, then Imam Malik's Muwatta at age ten, at which time his teacher would deputize him to teach in his absence. At age thirteen he went to see Malik, who was impressed by his memory and intelligence.
Malik ibn Anas and Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Shaybani were among his most prominent teachers and he took position against both of them in fiqh.
Al-Shafi'i said: "From Muhammad ibn al-Hasan I wrote a camel-load." Al-Hakim narrated from Abd Allah ibn Abd al-Hakam: "Al-Shafi'i never ceased to speak according to Malik's position and he would say: 'We do not differ from him other than in the way of his companions,' until some young men spoke unbecomingly at length behind his back, whereupon al-Shafi'i resolved to put his differences with Malik in writing.
Like Imams Abu Hanifah and al-Bukhari, he recited the entire Qur'an each day at prayer, and twice a day in the month of Ramadan.
Language skill
Al-Shafi'i was known for his peculiar strength in Arabic language, poetry, and philology. Bayhaqi narrated:
[From Ibn Hisham:] I was al-Shafi'i's sitting-companion for a long time, and I never heard him use except a word which, carefully considered, one would not find (in its context) a better word in the entire Arabic language. . . . Al-Shafi'i's discourse, in relation to language, is a proof in itself.
[From al-Hasan ibn Muhammad al-Zafarani:] A group of bedouins used to frequent al-Shafi'i's gathering with us and sit in a corner. One day I asked their leader: "You are not interested in scholarship; why do you keep coming to sit with us?" They said: "We come to hear al-Shafi'i's language."
Al-Shafi'i avoided any interpretation of the verses and narrations pertaining to the divine attributes. He practised "relegation of the meaning" (tafwid al-mina) to a higher source, as established in his saying: "I leave the meaning of the verses of the Attributes to Allah, and I leave the meaning of the hadiths of the attributes to Allah's Messenger."
Views of al-Shafi'i
Al-Shafi'i's hatred of dialectic theology (kalam) was based on his extreme caution against errors which bear heavy consequences as they induce one into false beliefs. Among his sayings concerning this: "It is better for a scholar of knowledge to give a fatwa after which he is said to be wrong than to theologize and then be said to be a heretic. I hate nothing more than theology and theologians."
Yet al-Shafi'i did not completely close the door to the use of kalam in defense of the Sunnah, as shown below and in the notice on Ahmad ibn Hanbal.
Yunus ibn Abi Yala narrated that al-Shafi'i defined the "principles" as: "The Qur'an, the Sunnah, analogy (qiyas), and consensus (ijma)"; he defined the latter to mean: "The adherence of the community of the Muslims to the conclusions of a given ruling pertaining to what is permitted and what is forbidden after the passing of the Prophet Muhammad, blessings and peace be upon him."
■ Al-Shafi'i's tomb in Cairo, Egypt
Al-Shafi'i did not close the door on the right use of kalam as is clear from Ibn Abi Hatim's narration from al-Rabi of his words: "If I wished, I could produce a book against each one of those who deviated, but dialectic theology is none of my business, and I would not like to be attributed any part in it."
Al-Shafi'i's attitude towards tasawwuf was as strict as with kalam, and he both praised it and denigrated its abuse at the hands of its corrupters.
In criticism of the latter he said: "No-one becomes a Sufi in the morning except he ends up a dolt by noon" while on the other hand he declared in his Diwan: "Be at the same time a faqih (jurist) and a Sufi."
Al-Shafi'i deferred primacy in the foundations of fiqh to Imam Abu Hanifah with his famous statement: "People are all the children of Abu Hanifah in fiqh." Ibn Hajar al-Haytami mentioned in the thirty-fifth chapter of his book on Imam Abu Hanifah entitled al-Khayrat al-Hisan: "When Imam al-Shafi'i was in Baghdad, he would visit the grave of Imam Abu Hanifah, greet him, and then ask Allah for the fulfillment of his need through his means."
Two schools of legal thought are actually attributed to al-Shafi'i, englobing his writings and legal opinions. These two schools are known in the terminology of jurists as "The Old" and "The New" corresponding respectively to his stays in Iraq and Egypt. What is presently known as the Shafi'i position refers to the "New" except in approximately twenty-two questions, in which Shafi'i scholars and muftis have retained the positions of the "Old".
View on bid'ah
A major contribution of al-Shafi'i in the foundations of the Law was his division of innovation (bid'ah) into good and bad on the basis of Umar's words about the tarawih or supererogatory night prayers in the month of Ramadan: "What a fine innovation this is!"
Harmala narrated that al-Shafi'i concluded: "Therefore, whatever innovation conforms to the Sunnah is approved, and whatever opposes it is abominable."
Abu Hatim narrated from Harmala that al-Shafi'i said: "The Caliphs are five: Abu Bakr, Umar, Uthman, Ali, and Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz."
In his Diwan he named them "leaders of their people, by whose guidance one obtains guidance," and declaimed of the Family of the Prophet Muhammad:
"The Family of the Prophet are my intermediary to him! Through them I hope to be given my record with the right hand."
and: "O Family of Allah's Messenger! To love you is an obligation which Allah ordained and revealed in the Qur'an. It is enough proof of your immense glory that whoever invokes not blessings upon you, his prayer is invalid."
In the introduction of his compendium of Shafi'i fiqh entitled al-Majmu, al-Nawawi mentions that al-Shafi'i used a walking stick for which he was asked: "Why do you carry a stick when you are neither old nor ailing?" He replied: "To remember I am only a traveller in this world."
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