The
Shafi'i school, one of the four Sunni schools of
Islamic jurisprudence, known as
madhhabs, is named for Al-Shāfi'ī, who is also credited setting up the framework of Islamic jurisprudence by establishing the relative importance order of its different sources as follows: • The
Qur'an; •
Hadith. i.e. collections of the words, actions, and silent approval of
Muhammad. (Together with the Qur'an these make up "revealed sources"); •
Ijma. i.e. the consensus of the (pure traditional) Muslim community; •
Qiyas. i.e. the method of analogy. Scholar John Burton goes farther, crediting Al-Shafi'i not just with establishing the science of fiqh in Islam, but its importance to the religion. "Where his contemporaries and their predecessors had engaged in defining Islam as a social and historical phenomenon, Shafi'i sought to define a revealed Law." Al-Shāfi‘ī emphasized the final authority of a
hadith of
Muhammad so that even the Qur'an was "to be interpreted in the light of traditions (i.e. hadith), and not vice versa." While traditionally the Quran is considered above the Sunna in authority, Al-Shafi'i "forcefully argued" that the sunna stands "on equal footing with the Quran", (according to scholar Daniel Brown) for – as Al-Shafi'i put it – "the command of the Prophet is the command of Almighty Allah." The focus by the Muslim community on ahadith of Muhammad and disinterest in ahadith of Muhammad's companions (whose ahadith were commonly used before Al-Shāfi‘ī since most of whom survived him and spread his teachings after his death) is thought (by scholar
Joseph Schacht) to reflect the success of Al-Shāfi‘ī's doctrine. Al-Shāfi‘ī influence was such that he changed the use of the term Sunnah, "until it invariably meant only the Sunnah of the Prophet" (according to John Burton this was his "principle achievement"). While earlier,
sunnah had been used to refer to tribal manners and customs, (and while Al-Shāfi‘ī distinguished between the non-authoritative "
sunnah of the Muslims" that was followed in practice, and the "
Sunnah of the Prophet" that Muslims
should follow), ; Mu'tazalites Al-Shāfi‘ī was part of those early traditionalist theologians who strongly opposed ''
i'tizal and criticized the speculative theologians for abandoning the Qur'an and sunnah'' through their adoption of
Greek philosophy in
metaphysics. ;Structures
Saladin built a
madrasa and a shrine on the site of his tomb. Saladin's brother Afdal built a
mausoleum for him in 1211 after the defeat of the
Fatimids. It remains a site where people petition for justice. ;Followers Among the followers of Imam al-Shāfi‘ī's school were: •
Bayhaqi •
Al-Suyuti •
Al-Dhahabi •
Al-Ghazali •
Ibn Hajar Asqalani •
Ibn Kathir •
Yahya ibn Sharaf al-Nawawi •
Al-Mawardi •
Al Muzani Works He authored more than 100 books, but few survived to this day. The extant works of his which are accessible today are: •
Al-Risala – The best-known book by al-Shafi'i in which he examined
principles of jurisprudence. The book has been translated into English. •
Kitab al-Umm – his main surviving text on
Shafi'i fiqh •
Musnad al-Shafi'i (on
hadith) – it is available with arrangement, Arabic 'Tartib', by Ahmad ibn Abd ar-Rahman al-Banna • Ikhtilaf al-Hadith • Al-Sunan al-Ma’thour • Jima’ al-’Ilm In addition to this, Al-Shāfi‘ī was an eloquent poet, who composed many short poems aimed at addressing morals and behaviour. The most famous of which is his Al-Diwan.
Anecdotal stories Ahmad ibn Hanbal considered al-Shafi'i to be the
"imam most faithful to tradition, who led the people of tradition (ahl al-ḥadīth), who emphasized transmitted reports, to victory against the exponents of ra'y (independent legal reasoning). In the words of Ibn Hanbal, "at no time was there anyone of importance in learning who erred less, and who followed more closely the sunnah of the Prophet than Al-Shāfi‘ī." "A
mujaddid appears at the end of every century: the
mujaddid of the 1st century was the
imam of
ahl al-sunna,
Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz; the
mujaddid of the 2nd century was Muhammad ibn Idris Al-Shāfi‘ī; the
mujaddid of the 3rd century was
Abu al-Hasan al-Ash'ari; the
mujaddid of the 4th century was
al-Hakim al-Nishapuri."
Quotations • He who seeks pearls immerses himself in the sea. • He said to the effect that no knowledge of Islam can be gained from books of
kalam, as it "is not from knowledge" and that "it is better for a man to spend his whole life doing whatever
Allah has prohibited—besides
shirk with Allah—rather than spending his whole life involved in
kalam." • If a
hadith is authenticated as coming from the Prophet, we have to resign ourselves to it, and your talk and the talk of others about why and how, is a mistake. == Islamic scholars ==