THE USE AND FUNCTION OF THE TERMS “TAREEQ” IN THE SHĀFİ’Ī MADHHAB
Authors: NAS Taha 
Published: June 2022

One of the important stages of the development of Shāfi’ī madhhab is the schooling of Irāq and Khorasān, which emerged as of the hijri fourth century and is called "tareeq". For a better understanding of Shafi'i fiqh, research for what exactly Shāfi’ī faqeehs mean by these terms, when and how the schooling started, what its different aspects are, what kind of results it has, how the efforts to combine them in a single line developed and who contributed to it will be examined is of great importance. For this reason, the concept of "tareeq", the emergence of tareeq and the faqeehs who belong to them, the nature of the conflict between tareeqs, the expressions used in choosing and choosing one or the other were examined.

Tareeq and its derivatives, understood from what Nawawī said, is a conceptualization that emerged as a result of the conflict that occurred about the narration and transmission of different qawil, wajih, tekhreec and preferences in the madhhab. That is, if one of the Shāfi’ī faqeehs says "there are two qawils or two wajihs" on a subject, and the other says "there are only one qawil" or "only one wajih", or if one says "there is absolute disagreement" on a subject and the other says "the subject requires explanation" it means that there has been a conflict in the meaning of tareeq in the transmission of madhhab. Although it is understood from the statements of Shāfi’ī faqeehs that there are many tareeqs, there are two known tareeqs, which are called with a certain name and these are Irāqī and Khorasān tareeqs. According to Nawawi, faqeehs belonging to the Irāqī tareeq are more robust and successful than the faqeehs of the Khorasān tareeq in conveying the clear expressions of Shāfi’ī, the principles of madhhab and the views of the early Shāfi’ī faqeehs. Khorasānians, on the other hand, were more successful than Irāqis in terms of disposition, research, interpretation and arrangement on these texts, and they processed them better.

The knowledge of fiqh left by Shāfi’ī was continued by his students and later followers, and the madhhab continued to develop in a single line until Abu Ishaq al- Marwazī, and the separation in the form of tareeq began with his students. Among these, the emergence of tareeqs can be attributed to Ebu al-Qāsim ad-Dārekī, who replaced his teacher to continue his teaching activities in Baghdad, and Abu Zeyd al-Marwazī, who established a teaching circle in Marw. Because, after these two faqeehs, two tareeqs became evident both in Baghdad and Khorasān, and personalities described as the imams of the tareeqs emerged. Abū Hāmid sl-Isferāyini’s accepted as the imam of the Irāqī tareeq, and Abū Bakr al-Qaffāl al-Sageer is accepted as the imam of the Khorasān tareeq. After these, most of the faqeehs who grew up for about three hundred years and the works they produced were related to one of these two tareeqs. As a result, many points of disagreement arose between the two tareeqs, disturbing the later aqeehs. These conflicts were at various levels, and although not always in complete opposition, they sometimes expressed the opposite of what one said to the other.

This situation caused some Shāfi’ī faqeehs to reduce the differences between wajihs and tareeqs in their many works, and to engage in reconciliation activities. The first attempt on this subject started with Abū Alī al-Sincī and continued with Juwaynī, Rūyani, Ghazzālī, Imrānī, Muāfi and Ibn al-Salāh. One of the faqeehs who tried to reconcile the tareeqs and brought it to a higher level was Rāfi’ī, and his activities formed the basis of Nawawi's studies on this subject. Benefiting from these reconciliation efforts before him, Nawawī, unlike Rāfi’ī, approached both of them from an impartial point of view from outside of both schools. In his works, he clearly expresses the distinction between Irāq and Khorasān by using the expressions Irāqiyūn and Khorasāniyyūn, and he prefers them.

Rāfi’ī and Nawawī, who tried to reconcile and express the opposition between the tareeqs expressing the conflict in the transmission of Madhhab, generally used the term al- madhhab to express the preferred view that is the fiduciary in the madhhab.