The Shafi'i School

1An orphan from the house of Quraysh

Imam Muhammad ibn Idris ash-Shafi'i, may Allah have mercy on him, was born in the year 150 after the Hijrah (767 CE) – according to the best-known report, in Gaza. It is the same year in which Imam Abu Hanifah passed away, and scholars have liked to see a sign in this: one great imam departs, another arrives. Ash-Shafi'i came from the tribe of Quraysh and, through his ancestor al-Muttalib, was related to the family of the Prophet ﷺ.

His father died when he was still small. His mother, a woman of firm resolve, brought him to Makkah, where the family had its roots. They were poor. It is reported that the boy had no money for paper and so wrote on bones, pottery shards and the backs of used sheets. But his memory and his zeal were extraordinary: as a child he memorised the Quran, and soon afterwards Imam Malik's Muwatta' as well.

Among the Bedouin and the scholars of Makkah

To learn the Arabic language in its purest form, ash-Shafi'i lived for a time with the tribe of Hudhayl in the desert, famed for its eloquence and poetry. Those years marked him for ever: his language was so clear and beautiful that later scholars cited his words as evidence of correct Arabic. Poems attributed to him are still read today – verses on friendship, patience, travel and trust in Allah.

In Makkah he studied with the scholars of the Sacred Precinct, among them Muslim ibn Khalid az-Zanji, the mufti of Makkah, and Sufyan ibn Uyaynah, a great hadith scholar. While still very young he was given permission to issue legal opinions.

2The journeys of a seeker

The life of Imam ash-Shafi'i is a journey – literally and figuratively. Every station gave him a new piece of knowledge, and in the end he joined it all into a whole.

Madinah: with Imam Malik

With the Muwatta' in his memory, the young ash-Shafi'i set out for Madinah, to Imam Malik. It is told that Malik was impressed by his gifts and his recitation and advised him to be mindful of Allah, for he would one day have a great standing. Ash-Shafi'i stayed with him until Malik's death in 179 AH and spoke of him with the greatest respect all his life. The saying is attributed to him: when the scholars are mentioned, Malik is the shining star.

Yemen and Iraq

After that he took up a post in Yemen. Later he came to Iraq, to Baghdad, and there met Muhammad ibn al-Hasan ash-Shaybani, the great student of Abu Hanifah. From him he learned the jurisprudence of the people of Iraq with its refined legal reasoning. Ash-Shafi'i is reported to have said that he carried away a camel-load of knowledge from Muhammad ibn al-Hasan. The two often debated intensely – and yet remained bound to each other in respect.

So ash-Shafi'i now carried two great traditions within him: the school of Madinah, with its closeness to hadith and transmission, and the school of Iraq, with its strength in analogy and reasoning. What he still lacked was a framework that would bring the two together.

Back to Makkah – and Baghdad again

He then taught in the Sacred Precinct in Makkah. There he was met by a young man who would himself become a great imam: Ahmad ibn Hanbal. The friendship between the two is one of the most beautiful stories in Islamic scholarship. Imam Ahmad said of him, in essence, that ash-Shafi'i was like the sun for the world and like well-being for people. And ash-Shafi'i especially valued Ahmad for his knowledge of hadith.

During his later stay in Baghdad, ash-Shafi'i taught his doctrine in an ordered form. What he held there is called his old doctrine (al-Qadim).

Egypt: the final station

In the last years of his life ash-Shafi'i went to Egypt. There he reconsidered much, revised his books and changed his view on numerous questions. This mature version is his new doctrine (al-Jadid). He passed away in the year 204 AH (820 CE) in Fustat, old Cairo. His mausoleum in the area of al-Qarafa in Cairo is still visited by many people today.

That a scholar at the end of his life is willing to re-examine and change his own earlier views is a great example. It shows that knowledge is not a possession to defend but a path on which one wants to draw ever closer to the truth.

3The Risala – the cornerstone of legal methodology

Before ash-Shafi'i wrote, scholars of course already had methods – they applied them without setting them out in detail in a book of their own. Ash-Shafi'i's ar-Risala ("the Treatise") is regarded as the first work to present the foundations of deriving law systematically. With it he became the founder of the science of usul al-fiqh, the principles of jurisprudence.

In the Risala he discusses, among other things:

• how the Quran explains itself and how the Sunnah explains the Quran (al-bayan);
• the binding authority of the Sunnah and the duty to obey the Messenger ﷺ – drawing on verses such as "Obey Allah and obey the Messenger" 4:59;
• the acceptance of hadiths passed on by single trustworthy narrators (khabar al-wahid);
• abrogation (naskh) and how to deal with narrations that seem to contradict each other;
• consensus (ijma') and analogy (qiyas);
• the importance of the Arabic language for understanding revelation.

In this way ash-Shafi'i gave the whole ummah a shared language. Scholars of other schools later wrote their own works on legal methodology in conversation with this book – agreeing, adding or disagreeing.

The work al-Umm

Alongside the Risala, al-Umm ("the Mother") is his great work of jurisprudence. It contains his new doctrine on worship, trade, family and much more, often with detailed reasoning and discussions with other scholars. It was transmitted above all by his Egyptian student ar-Rabi' ibn Sulayman al-Muradi.

4The method: how the Shafi'is derive rulings

The Shafi'i method is distinguished by its clarity and order. The sources are:

1. 1The Quran.
2. 2The Sunnah – for ash-Shafi'i an authentic hadith stands very close to the Quran as a source, for ultimately both come from Allah.
3. 3Consensus (ijma') of the scholars.
4. 4Analogy (qiyas), which ash-Shafi'i described precisely and bound to firm conditions.

The statements of the Companions and the principle of istishab (presuming the existing state continues until the contrary is established) also play a role.

Towards istihsan, as it was understood in his day, ash-Shafi'i was very reserved. He wanted to make sure that every ruling remained tied to clear evidence and did not depend on personal preference. Other schools often understood istihsan as a reasoned weighing that likewise rests on evidence – here scholars are sometimes discussing terms more than the substance itself.

"If a hadith is authentic ..."

A famous saying is attributed to Imam ash-Shafi'i: "If a hadith is authentic, then it is my school." He meant that his opinion must never stand above the word of the Prophet ﷺ. Later scholars of the school stressed that applying this saying requires deep knowledge – one must know the hadith, its meaning and all the other evidence. It is not a call to bypass the scholars, but an expression of great humility.

Just as beautiful is a saying attributed to him: my view is correct, with the possibility that it is wrong; the view of another is wrong, with the possibility that it is correct. This sentence holds the whole culture of disagreement (adab al-ikhtilaf) that the great imams cultivated with one another.

Old and new doctrine

Because ash-Shafi'i revised his views in Egypt, the scholars of the school distinguish between the old doctrine from Iraq and the new doctrine from Egypt. Where the two differ, the new doctrine is in principle the one relied upon. Only in a small number of questions did later scholars of the school prefer the old view, because they considered its evidence stronger.

5The students and the great scholars of the school

In Egypt, students gathered around ash-Shafi'i who preserved and passed on his teaching:

• al-Muzani, whose Mukhtasar (abridgement) became the basis of many later works;
• al-Buwayti, who took over his teacher's circle after his death;
• ar-Rabi' ibn Sulayman al-Muradi, the transmitter of al-Umm.

In Iraq, scholars such as Abu Thawr and az-Za'farani had studied with him earlier, and Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal remained bound to him in love.

Over the centuries the school produced an impressive line of scholars. Some names you will meet again and again in Islamic literature:

• Al-Mawardi, a judge in Baghdad, author of al-Hawi and of the work on the principles of governance al-Ahkam as-Sultaniyyah.
• Abu Ishaq ash-Shirazi, author of al-Muhadhdhab and at-Tanbih.
• Imam al-Haramayn al-Juwayni, a master of legal methodology, and his student Abu Hamid al-Ghazali, who besides his works of jurisprudence wrote, in Ihya' Ulum ad-Din, one of the most widely read books on the inner life of faith.
• Ar-Rafi'i, whose works carefully ordered the positions of the school.
• Imam an-Nawawi of Nawa near Damascus, may Allah have mercy on him. He lived a short, poor and ascetic life, and yet he left a body of work that still nourishes the world: Minhaj at-Talibin and Rawdat at-Talibin in jurisprudence, al-Majmu' as a great commentary, his commentary on Sahih Muslim – and two books found in countless homes: Riyad as-Salihin and the Forty Hadith. Together with ar-Rafi'i, he is regarded as the main reference for the verified teaching of the school.
• Al-Izz ibn Abd as-Salam, famous for his fearlessness and his work on the fundamental rules of legal rulings.
• Ibn Kathir, the great Quran commentator. When you read Ibn Kathir's tafsir at Quran Masterclass, you are reading the words of a Shafi'i scholar.
• Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, author of Fath al-Bari, the most famous commentary on Sahih al-Bukhari.
• Jalal ad-Din as-Suyuti, an unusually prolific author in almost all the Islamic sciences.
• Zakariyya al-Ansari, and after him Ibn Hajar al-Haytami with Tuhfat al-Muhtaj and Shams ad-Din ar-Ramli with Nihayat al-Muhtaj – both commentaries on an-Nawawi's Minhaj. Later Shafi'is rely on these two works to a special degree.

For beginners, short teaching texts are read in many countries, such as the abridgement of Abu Shuja' or the little Safinat an-Naja, which is especially loved in South-East Asia and Yemen.

6Where the school is at home

From Egypt the Shafi'i school spread in many directions. Much of its spread came not through conquest but through traders and scholars who travelled by sea – especially from Yemen and Hadramawt. Along with their goods they brought the Quran, their good character and their books, and so people on distant shores came to Islam.

Today the school is followed above all in:

• Egypt, especially Lower Egypt, and parts of the Levant (for example Syria, Palestine, Lebanon and Jordan, alongside other schools);
• Yemen, especially Hadramawt and the south;
• East Africa: Somalia, Djibouti, the coasts of Kenya and Tanzania, Zanzibar and the Comoros;
• South-East Asia: Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore, southern Thailand and the southern Philippines;
• among the Kurds and in parts of the North Caucasus such as Dagestan and Chechnya;
• Sri Lanka, the Maldives and the Malabar coast of southern India.

So when you meet a colleague from Indonesia, a neighbour from Somalia or a friend from Kurdistan in the Emirates, there is a good chance their prayer was learned according to the Shafi'i understanding.

Historically the school also had great centres in Baghdad, Damascus and Cairo. The Nizamiyyah college in Baghdad, where al-Ghazali taught, and the many madrasas of Damascus and Cairo trained generations of scholars. At al-Azhar in Cairo, the Shafi'i school is still taught today alongside the other schools.

7What you may notice in daily life

The Shafi'is, too, have small particularities you may notice – not as a reason for division, but as a sign of care:

• The basmala: It is regarded as a verse of al-Fatihah and is recited aloud in the prayers that are recited aloud.
• The hands: They are placed one over the other below the chest and above the navel. The hands are raised at the opening takbir, when bowing and when rising from the bow.
• Al-Fatihah behind the imam: Even one praying behind an imam recites al-Fatihah himself, including in the prayers recited aloud.
• The qunut: In the dawn prayer the qunut is said regularly after rising from the bow in the second unit of prayer.
• Wudu: According to the Shafi'i teaching, ablution is broken when the skin of a man touches the skin of a woman who is not among his close relatives, and vice versa.
• The closing salam: The prayer is ended with two salams, to the right and to the left.

If you follow another school, you will know some of these differently. That is the richness of the ummah: different scholars studied the same evidence with the utmost seriousness and reached different conclusions on details. The Prophet ﷺ said: "When a judge rules, strives and is right, he receives two rewards; when he rules, strives and errs, he receives one reward" (al-Bukhari and Muslim).

8The contribution to Islamic civilisation

Perhaps Imam ash-Shafi'i's greatest contribution is that he gave thought an order. The science of legal methodology that he founded became a shared tool of all the schools. Anyone today who wants to understand how scholars derive rulings from the Quran and Sunnah is standing on his shoulders.

Beyond that, the Shafi'i school produced scholars whose books on hadith, tafsir and spirituality are loved far beyond the school: Riyad as-Salihin, the Forty Hadith, Fath al-Bari, the tafsir of Ibn Kathir. And through traders, scholars and teachers it helped Islam to take root peacefully in East Africa and South-East Asia. Today a large share of the world's Muslims live in these regions.

9A closing word

Allah says in the Quran: "So ask the people of the reminder if you do not know" 16:43. Imam ash-Shafi'i asked, searched and learned all his life – with Malik in Madinah, with ash-Shaybani in Iraq, with the Bedouin of the desert – and he passed on what he learned to the ummah with great clarity.

His school is one of the schools that Muslims throughout the world recognise as part of their shared heritage, alongside the Hanafi, Maliki and Hanbali schools and the further schools named by the Amman Message: Ja'fari, Zaydi, Ibadi and Zahiri. Ash-Shafi'i was a student of Malik and a teacher of Ahmad, and he learned from the students of Abu Hanifah – in his person the great imams, as it were, join hands. May Allah have mercy on him, reward him richly, and grant us the love of knowledge and the respect for one another that he lived.