Shafi'i school

Shafi'i school
The Shafi'i school (also spelled Shafei), or Madhhab al-Shāfiʿī, is one of the four major traditional schools of religious law (madhhab) in the Sunnī branch of Islam. It was founded by Muslim theologian Muḥammad ibn Idrīs al-Shāfiʿī, "the father of Muslim jurisprudence", in the early 9th century.
The other three schools of Sunnī jurisprudence are Ḥanafī, Mālikī and Ḥanbalī. Like the other schools of fiqh, Shafii recognize the First Four Caliphs as the Islamic prophet Muhammad's rightful successors and relies on the Qurʾān and the "sound" books of Ḥadīths as primary sources of law. The Shafi'i school affirms the authority of both divine law-giving (the Qurʾān and the Sunnah) and human speculation regarding the Law. Where passages of Qurʾān and/or the Ḥadīths are ambiguous, the school seeks guidance of Qiyās (analogical reasoning). The Ijmā' (consensus of scholars or of the community) was "accepted but not stressed". The school rejected the dependence on local traditions as the source of legal precedent and rebuffed the Ahl al-Ra'y (personal opinion) and the Istiḥsān (juristic discretion).
The Shafii school was widely followed in the Middle East until the rise of the Ottomans and the Safavids. Traders and merchants helped to spread Shafii Islam across the Indian Ocean, as far as India and Southeast Asia. The Shafii school is now predominantly found in parts of the Hejaz and the Levant, Lower Egypt and Yemen, and among the Kurdish people, in the North Caucasus and across the Indian Ocean (Horn of Africa and the Swahili Coast in Africa and coastal South Asia and Southeast Asia).
Principles
The fundamental principle of the Shafii thought depends on the idea that "to every act performed by a believer who is subject to the Law there corresponds a statute belonging to the Revealed Law or the Shari'a". This statute is either presented as such in the Qurʾān or the Sunnah or it is possible, by means of analogical reasoning (Qiyas), to infer it from the Qurʾān or the Sunnah.
Al-Shafii was the first jurist to insist that Ḥadīth were the decisive source of law (over traditional doctrines of earlier thoughts). In order of priority, the sources of jurisprudence according to the Shafii thought, are:
The Foundation (al asl)
Qurʾān — the sacred scripture of Islam.
Sunnah — defined by Al-Shāfiʿī as "the sayings, the acts, and the tacit acquiescence of Prophet Muhammed as related in solidly established traditions".
The school rejected dependence on local community practice as the source of legal precedent.
Ma'qul al-asl
Qiyas with Legal Proof or Dalil Shari'a — "Analogical reasoning as applied to the deduction of juridical principles from the Qurʾān and the Sunnah."
Analogy by Cause (Qiyas al-Ma'na/Qiyas al-Illa)
Analogy by Resemblance (Qiyas al-Shabah)
Ijmā' — consensus of scholars or of the community ("accepted but not stressed").
The concept of Istishab was first introduced by the later Shafii scholars. Al-Shafii also postulated that "penal sanctions lapse in cases where repentance precedes punishment".
Risālah
The groundwork legal text for the Shafii law is al-Shafiʽi's al-Risala ("the Message"), composed in Egypt. It outlines the principles of Shafii legal thought as well as the derived jurisprudence. A first version of the Risālah, al-Risalah al-Qadima, produced by al-Shafiʽi during his stay in Baghdad, is currently lost.
Differences from Mālikī and Ḥanafī thoughts
Al-Shāfiʿī fundamentally criticised the concept of judicial conformism (the Istiḥsan).
With Mālikī view
Shafii school argued that various existing local traditions may not reflect the practice of Prophet Muhammed (a critique to the Mālikī thought). The local traditions, according to the Shāfiʿī understanding, thus cannot be treated as sources of law.
With Ḥanafī view
The Shafii school rebuffed the Ahl al-Ra'y (personal opinion) and the Istiḥsān (juristic discretion). It insisted that the rules of the jurists could no longer be invoked in legal issues without additional authentications. The school refused to admit doctrines that had no textual basis in either the Qurʾān or Ḥadīths, but were based on the opinions of Islamic scholars (the Imams).
The Shafii thinking believes that the methods may help to "substitute man for God and Prophet Muhammed, the only legitimate legislators" and "true knowledge and correct interpretation of religious obligations would suffer from arbitrary judgments infused with error".
History
Al-Shāfiʿī (–820 AD) visited most of the great centres of Islamic jurisprudence in the Middle East during the course of his travels and amassed a comprehensive knowledge of the different ways of legal theory. He was a student of scholars Mālik ibn Anas, the founder of the Mālikī school of law, and Muḥammad Shaybānī, the great Ḥanafī intellectual in Baghdad.
The Shafii thoughts were initially spread by Al-Shafii students in Cairo and Baghdad. By the 10th century, the holy cities of Mecca and Medina and Syria also became chief centres of Shafii ideas.
The school later exclusively held the judgeships in Syria, Kirman, Bukhara and the Khorasan. It also flourished in Northern Mesopotamia and in Daylam. The Ghurids also endorsed the Shafiis in the 11th and 12th centuries AD.
Under Salah al-Din, the Shafii school again became the paramount thought in Egypt (the region had come under Shi'a influence prior to this period). It was the "official school" of the Ayyubid dynasty and remained prominent during Mamlūk period also. Baybars, the Mamlūk sultan, later appointed judges from all four madhabs in Egypt.
Traders and merchants helped to spread Shafii Islam across the Indian Ocean, as far India and the Southeast Asia.
Under Ottomans and the Safavids
Rise of the Ottomans in the 16th century resulted in the replacement of Shafii judges by Ḥanafī scholars.
Under the Safavids, Shafii preeminence in Central Asia was replaced by Shi'a Islam.
After the beginning of the Safavid rule, the presence of the Shafi's in Iran was limited to the western regions of the country.
Distribution
The Shafii school is presently predominant in the following parts of the world:
Middle East and North Africa: Parts of Hejaz, the Levant (Palestine, Jordan and a significant number in Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq), Lower Egypt, among Sunnis in Iran and Yemen, and the Kurdish people.
Eurasia: Northern region of Azerbaijan, Dagestan, Chechen and Ingush regions of the North Caucasus.
On the Indian Ocean
Africa: Djibouti, Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea and the Swahili Coast (Kenya and Tanzania).
South Asia: Maldives, Sri Lanka and southern India (Kerala, southern Tamil Nadu, western Karnataka).
Southeast Asia: Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Myanmar, Thailand, Brunei, and the southern Philippines.
The Shafii school is one of the largest school of Sunni madhhabs by number of adherents. The demographic data by each fiqh, for each nation, is unavailable and the relative demographic size are estimates.
Notable Shafiis
Al-Muzani (c.791-878)
Al-Ghazali (c.1058-1111)
Yahya ibn Sharaf al-Nawawi (c.1230-1277)
Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (c.1150-1209)
Ibn al-Nafis (c.1213-1288)
Ibn Kathir (c.1300-1373)
Izz al-Din ibn 'Abd al-Salam (c.1182-1262)
Ibn Daqiq al-'Id (c.1228-1302)
Al-Suyuti (c.1445-1505)
In Hadith:
Abu Zur'a al-Razi
Abu Hatim al-Razi
Ibn Khuzaymah
Ibn Hibban
Al-Khattabi
Al-Daraqutni
Hakim al-Nishaburi
Abu Nu'aym al-Isfahani
Al-Bayhaqi (c.994-1066)
Al-Khatib al-Baghdadi
Al-Baghawi
Ibn Asakir
Ibn al-Salah
Ibn al-Najjar
Al-Nawawi
Al-Mizzi
Al-Dhahabi (c.1274-1348)
Taqi al-Din al-Subki
Ibn Kathir (c.1300-1373)
Ibn al-Mulaqqin
Zain al-Din al-'Iraqi
Ali ibn Abu Bakr al-Haythami
Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani (c.1372-1449)
Al-Sakhawi
Al-Suyuti
Al-Qastallani
Ibn Hajar al-Haytami (c.1503-1566)
In Tafsir:
Al-Tabari (c.839-923)
Ahmad ibn Muhammad al-Tha'labi
Al-Baghawi
Fakhr al-Din al-Razi
Ibn Kathir (c.1300-1373)
Taqi al-Din al-Subki
Al-Baydawi
Al-Mahalli
Al-Suyuti
Said Nursî
Hamka
In Fiqh:
Al-Khattabi
Al-Mawardi
Abu Ishaq al-Shirazi
Al-Juwayni
Al-Ghazali
Al-Baghawi
Izz al-Din ibn 'Abd al-Salam
Ibn al-Salah
Ar-Rafi'i
Al-Nawawi
Taqi al-Din al-Subki
Siraj al-Din al-Bulqini
Ibn al-Mulaqqin
Al-Baydawi
Al-Mahalli
Zakariyya al-Ansari
Al-Suyuti
Ibn Hajar al-Haytami
Sayf al-Din al-Amidi
Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri
Zainuddin Makhdoom I
Ibn Nuhaas
Abdallah al-Qutbi
In Usul al-Fiqh:
Abu Ishaq al-Shirazi
Al-Juwayni
Al-Ghazali
Fakhr al-Din al-Razi
Izz al-Din ibn 'Abd al-Salam
Taqi al-Din al-Subki
Al-Mahalli
Al-Suyuti
In Arabic language studies:
Ibn Malik
Ibn Hisham
Fairuzabadi
Taqi al-Din al-Subki
Al-Suyuti
In Theology:
Ibn Kullab
Abu al-Hasan al-Ash'ari
Ibn Furak
Abu Mansur al-Baghdadi
Al-Bayhaqi
Al-Juwayni
Al-Ghazali
Fakhr al-Din al-Razi
Izz al-Din ibn 'Abd al-Salam
Taqi al-Din al-Subki
In Philosophy:
Abd al-Jabbar ibn Ahmad
In Sufism
Harith al-Muhasibi
Abd al-Karīm ibn Hawāzin Qushayri
Abu Talib al-Makki
Imam al-Haddad
Ahmad Ghazali (c.1061-1123)
Ayn al-Quzat Hamadani
Abu al-Najib Suhrawardi
Shahab al-Din Suhrawardi
Yusuf Hamdani
Ahmed ar-Rifa'i
Najm al-Din Kubra
Shams Tabrizi
Safi-ad-din Ardabili
Kamal Khujandi
Yusuf an-Nabhani
Abd Al-Rahman bin Ahmad al-Zayla'i
In history
Al-Khatib al-Baghdadi
Ibn 'Asakir
Ali ibn al-Athir
Ibn al-Najjar
Ibn Khallikan
Al-Dhahabi
Taqi al-Din al-Nabhani
Statesmen
Saladin
Nizam al-Mulk
Contemporary Shafii scholars
From Middle East and North Africa:
Ahmed Kuftaro
Ali Gomaa
Habib Umar bin Hafiz
Habib Umar al-Jilani
Sa'id Foudah
Abdullah al-Harari
Ali al-Jifri
Mohammad Salim Al-Awa
Wahba Zuhayli
Taha Jabir Alalwani
Taha Karaan
From Southeast Asia:
Afifi al-Akiti
Ahmad Syafi'i Maarif
Hasyim Muzadi
Syed Muhammad Naquib al-Attas
Zakaria bin Muhammad Amin
From South Asia:
Muhammad Jifri Muthukkoya Thangal
Tajul Ulama
K. Ali Kutty Musliyar
Kanniyath Ahmed Musliyar
E. K. Aboobacker Musliyar
Zainuddin Makhdoom II
Sheikh Abubakr Ahmad
Cherussery Zainuddeen Musliyar
Varakkal Mullakoya Thangal
See also
Sunni Islam
Hanafi
Maliki
Hanbali
Shia Islam
References
Notes
1."The law provides sanctions for any religious practice other than the Sunni Shafiʽi doctrine of Islam and for prosecution of converts from Islam, and bans proselytizing for any religion except Islam."
Citations
Bibliography
Primary sources
Scholarly sources
Further reading
Yahia, Mohyddin (2009). Shafii et les deux sources de la loi islamique, Turnhout: Brepols Publishers,
Rippin, Andrew (2005). Muslims: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices (3rd ed.). London: Routledge. pp. 90–93. .
Calder, Norman, Jawid Mojaddedi, and Andrew Rippin (2003). Classical Islam: A Sourcebook of Religious Literature. London: Routledge. Section 7.1.
Schacht, Joseph (1950). The Origins of Muhammadan Jurisprudence. Oxford: Oxford University. pp. 16.
Khadduri, Majid (1987). Islamic Jurisprudence: Shafii's Risala. Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society. pp. 286.
Abd Majid, Mahmood (2007). Tajdid Fiqh Al-Imam Al-Syafi'i. Seminar pemikiran Tajdid Imam As Shafie 2007.
al-Shafii, Muhammad b. Idris, "The Book of the Amalgamation of Knowledge" translated by A.Y. Musa in Hadith as Scripture: Discussions on The Authority Of Prophetic Traditions in Islam, New York: Palgrave, 2008
External links
Shafi'iyyah (University of Cumbria)
Madhhab
Sunni Islamic branches
Schools of Sunni jurisprudence
Sunni Islam