Muḥammad ibn ʾIdrīs ash-Shāfiʿī

His Life and Journeys

His Birth, Early Life and Upbringing

He was born in the year 150 AH, the very same year in which Imām ʾAbū Hanīfah passed away, so it is as though Allāh ﷻ took one great scholar from this Ummah and blessed it with another in his place. It was also said that he was born on the very same day as Imām ʾAbū Hanīfah's passing, though Imām al-Bayhaqī noted that this is not authentically established.¹ According to the majority of narrations, he was born in Ghazzah, a city in Palestine among the holy lands upon which Allāh ﷻ has bestowed His blessings. As Imām Mujīr ad-Dīn al-ʿUlaymī remarked, "If Ghazzah had no honour except for it being the birthplace of Prophet Sulaymān ﷺ and ash-Shāfiʿī, that would have sufficed."² He passed away in the land of Egypt in the year 204 AH at the age of 54.

His father passed away when he was still an infant, so our Imām grew up orphaned under his mother's care, in poverty and difficult circumstances. When he was two years of age, his mother took him to Makkah. In his youth, he would sit with the scholars and write down what he learned on bones and the like, owing to his inability to afford paper. He memorised the Qurʾān by the age of seven, then the Muwaṭṭaʾ of Imām Mālik by the age of ten. He mastered the Arabic language and poetry to such a degree that he became a Hujjah in the Arabic tongue, with major linguists and grammarians relying upon his statements.³ He also attained expertise in archery, consistently striking nine out of ten targets, and it is said that he would intentionally leave one target unstriken so as to avert the envy of others.

The Beginning of His Studies

Afterwards, he turned his attention to the pursuit of Fiqh. Imām al-Humaydī relates that ash-Shāfiʿī had initially set out seeking knowledge of Arabic grammar and literature, when he encountered the Muftī of Makkah, Imām Muslim ibn Khālid al-Zanjī (d. 179 AH). Imām Muslim asked him, "Oh young man! Where are you from?" He replied, "From the people of Makkah." He asked, "From which tribe?" He replied, "From ʿAbd Manāf." Upon this, Imām Muslim said to him, "Congratulations! Allāh ﷻ has honoured you in this world and the Hereafter. Should you not devote this understanding of yours to Fiqh as well, so that it is more beneficial for you?!" And so it was that ash-Shāfiʿī began his study of Fiqh, first under Imām Muslim ibn Khālid al-Zanjī himself, then under the other Imāms of Makkah, most foremost among them Imām Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah (d. 198 AH).

All of his teachers praised and revered him immensely. Imām ibn Bint ash-Shāfiʿī related that his father and uncle said that whenever any question concerning Tafsīr or Fiqh came to Imām Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah, he would turn towards ash-Shāfiʿī and say, "Ask this young man." The measure of Imām Sufyān's regard for him was made yet more apparent on the occasion when ash-Shāfiʿī fainted in one of his gatherings upon hearing a particularly moving Hadīth. The students present cried out, "Oh ʾAbū Muhammad! Muhammad ibn ʾIdrīs has died!" To which Imām Sufyān replied, "If Muhammad ash-Shāfiʿī has died, then the most virtuous man of his time has died."⁴

He remained in Makkah for eleven years, during which Imām Muslim ibn Khālid granted him permission to issue fatwā when he was only fifteen years of age. He then departed for Madīnah in 163 AH, visiting Makkah from time to time throughout this period, to sit at the feet of the Imām of Dār al-Hijrah, Mālik ibn ʾAnas (d. 179 AH).

His Journey to Madīnah and His Relationship with Imām Mālik

Our Imām came to Madīnah primarily to take knowledge from the Imām of Dār al-Hijrah, Mālik ibn ʾAnas (d. 179 AH), and Imām Mālik received him in a manner befitting his lineage, his knowledge, his understanding, his intellect and his manners. Ash-Shāfiʿī read al-Muwaṭṭaʾ to Imām Mālik entirely from memory, and Imām Mālik was so struck by his recitation that he would increase his listening, drawn in by the brilliance of the young man before him. This is what moved him to say, "Fear Allāh ﷻ, for it will be important for you", and in another narration, "Allāh ﷻ has cast a light in your heart, so do not extinguish it with sin." These were not merely words of encouragement but the recognition of a master who saw in his student something he had rarely, if ever, encountered before.

Ash-Shāfiʿī remained in Madīnah for sixteen years, until the passing of Imām Mālik in 179 AH, after which he returned to Makkah. Imām Muslim ibn Khālid al-Zanjī passed away in that same year. During this entire period of his life, ash-Shāfiʿī was upon the Madhab of Imām Mālik, and no personal views of his contrary to his Shaykh are known from this time.⁵

His Journey to Yemen, the Trial, and Baghdad

At this point in his life, ash-Shāfiʿī had accumulated a vast wealth of knowledge, yet remained materially poor, his father having left no inheritance behind. When he was around thirty years of age, an opportunity arose to serve as an assistant to the governor of Yemen, made possible by the governor himself, who had visited Madīnah and been struck by ash-Shāfiʿī's learning and his remarkable range of skills. Ash-Shāfiʿī accepted, and while in Yemen he did not cease to seek knowledge, studying under the scholars there, among them Imām Hishām ibn Yūsuf, who was himself a student of Imām Sufyān ath-Thawrī, the Imām of Ahl al-Kūfā.

While in Yemen, he proved himself a man of complete justice and fairness, closing the doors of bribery that many of the corrupt officials around him had left wide open. It was precisely this integrity that made him enemies. Certain individuals spread the false accusation that ash-Shāfiʿī was a secret partisan of the Zaydī Imām Yahyā ibn ʿAbdullāh and an opponent of the ruling Caliph, Hārūn ar-Rashīd. These conspiracies cost him his position and far more besides, for he was deported and taken to Baghdad in chains and shackles in 184 AH. He appeared before the court of Hārūn ar-Rashīd alongside nine other individuals, each of whom was put to death. By the Grace of Allāh ﷻ alone, our Imām was spared, having defended himself before the Caliph with such eloquence and clarity that Hārūn ar-Rashīd himself is reported to have declared, "I tested ash-Shāfiʿī and found him perfected in everything!"⁶

Imām Muhammad ibn al-Hasan ash-Shaybānī (d. 189 AH) also played an important role in this affair, for he had heard of ash-Shāfiʿī's eminence in knowledge and, holding great prestige with the government, interceded on his behalf. After the trial concluded, ash-Shāfiʿī chose not to return to Yemen or the Hijāz but instead remained in ʿIrāq, determined to study the Fiqh of Ahl ar-Raʾy and take knowledge from their scholars. In Baghdad he studied under Imām Wakīʿ ibn al-Jarrāh (d. 197 AH), Imām ʿAbd al-Wahhāb ath-Thaqafī (d. 194 AH), Imām ʾIsmāʿīl ibn ʾIbrāhīm al-Basrī (d. 193 AH) and others. Imām ʾAbū Hassan az-Ziyādī noted that he never saw Imām Muhammad ibn al-Hasan ash-Shaybānī revere any scholar the way he revered ash-Shāfiʿī.⁷ After two years in Baghdad, having mastered the Fiqh of Ahl ar-Raʾy, he returned to Makkah in 186 AH, thirty-six years of age.

The Formation of the Qawl al-Qadīm

Upon his return to Makkah at the age of thirty-six, something became apparent that had not been seen before: ash-Shāfiʿī began expressing disagreements with his teacher Imām Mālik, both in Furūʿ and in Usūl, issuing verdicts contrary to his opinions on multiple issues. This was the beginning of what would come to be known as his Qawl al-Qadīm, his old school of legal thought, and it announced to the world of scholarship that a Mujtahid Mustaqil Mutlaq had arrived, one who derived rulings independently from the primary sources without being bound to any preceding school.

It was during this period in Makkah that Imām ʾAhmad ibn Hanbal (d. 241 AH) became his primary student, visiting him frequently and sitting with him in preference over the other great scholars of the age. Imām al-Fadhl ibn ʾIshāq al-Bazzār (d. 242 AH) narrated that he performed Hajj with Imām ʾAhmad and stayed with him in Makkah. When the time of Fajr came, they both went for the prayer, after which Imām al-Fadhl sat in the gathering of Imām Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah. Not finding Imām ʾAhmad beside him, he went out looking and found him sitting in the gathering of a young man. He said to Imām ʾAhmad, "Oh ʾAbū ʿAbdullāh! You left Imām ibn ʿUyaynah, who narrates Hadīths from the Tābiʿīn, for this man?!" Imām ʾAhmad replied, "Be silent! If you were to miss a Hadīth with an elevated chain, it will neither harm your religion nor your intellect. But if you were to miss this young man, I fear you will not find anyone like him until the Day of Judgement, for I have not seen anyone having more mastery of Fiqh than him!" He asked, "Who is he?" He replied, "Muhammad ibn ʾIdrīs ash-Shāfiʿī."

Imām ʾAbū Bakr al-Humaydī (d. 219 AH) and Imām ʾIshāq ibn Rāhūyah (d. 238 AH) likewise became among his most distinguished students during this period, both profoundly influenced by him. Al-Humaydī declared, "The master of the scholars of his time is Muhammad ibn ʾIdrīs ash-Shāfiʿī", and when he narrated from him, he would say, "Sayyid al-Fuqahāʾ ash-Shāfiʿī narrated to us."⁸ As for Imām ʾIshāq, he related that Imām ʾAhmad once said to him in Makkah, "Come with me so that I show you a man the like of whom your eyes have never seen", then took him to ash-Shāfiʿī. They engaged in discourses on Hadīth, on Fiqh, on the Qurʾān and on language, after each of which Imām ʾIshāq found ash-Shāfiʿī to be without equal. He affirmed his precedence and later said, "No one spoke with Raʾy, and he mentioned Imām ath-Thawrī, Imām al-ʾAwzāʿī, Imām Mālik and Imām ʾAbū Hanīfah, except that ash-Shāfiʿī had the least mistakes."⁹

He remained in Makkah for eight years, and it was a period of extraordinary intellectual flowering, one in which the foundations of a Madhab that would come to encompass much of the Islamic world were quietly but firmly being laid.

His Return to Baghdad and the Reconciliation Between Ahl al-Hadīth and Ahl ar-Raʾy

In 195 AH, ash-Shāfiʿī departed Makkah for Baghdad once more, and this second stay stands as one of the most consequential periods of his entire life. Among the reasons scholars mention for his return was the deep and bitter discord that had come to exist between Ahl al-Hadīth and Ahl ar-Raʾy in ʿIrāq, a tension that had hardened over generations into open mutual hostility. Imām ʾAhmad ibn Hanbal captured the state of affairs with painful honesty when he said, "We did not cease to curse Ahl ar-Raʾy and they would curse us, until ash-Shāfiʿī came and reconciled our differences." And in another statement, "We Ashāb al-Hadīth used to be surpassed at the hands of the Ashāb of Imām ʾAbū Hanīfah, until we saw ash-Shāfiʿī." Al-Qādhī ʿIyyādh explained the nature of this reconciliation with precision, noting that ash-Shāfiʿī held fast to the authentic reports and demonstrated to Ahl ar-Raʾy that sound legal opinion is a branch of the primary textual evidence, while showing Ahl al-Hadīth that the rulings of the religion are built upon principled Qiyās derived from those very texts, thus bringing both sides to recognise what they had each been missing.¹⁰

He held well-documented debates with the foremost scholars of Ahl ar-Raʾy, dismantling their positions with the force of his arguments and establishing the Hujjah of Khabar al-Wāhid, for which he earned the titles Nāsir al-Hadīth and Nāsir as-Sunnah. The impact upon Baghdad was immediate and visible. Imām ʾIbrāhīm al-Harbī related, "Ash-Shāfiʿī came to Baghdad and there were twenty different sittings of Ashāb ar-Raʾy in the northern Masjid, but the following day only three or four remained." Major Imāms of Ahl ar-Raʾy left their school and attached themselves to the teachings of ash-Shāfiʿī, the foremost among them being Imām ʾAbū Thawr al-Kalbī (d. 240 AH), followed by Imām al-Karābīsī (d. 248 AH) and Imām az-Zaʿfarānī (d. 260 AH). Imām ʾAbū Thawr, who had seen much, testified that ash-Shāfiʿī had more mastery in Fiqh than Imām ash-Shaybānī, Imām ʾAbū Yūsuf, Imām ʾAbū Hanīfah, Imām Hammād ibn ʾAbī Sulaymān, Imām ʾIbrāhīm an-Nakhaʿī, Imām ʿAlqamah and Imām al-ʾAswad.¹¹ By this stage, ash-Shāfiʿī had not only surpassed his own teachers but the Imāms of the Tābiʿīn themselves.

It was during this stay in Baghdad that he documented his Madhab al-Qadīm in a more complete and systematic form, authoring al-Hujjah in Furūʿ and al-Risālah al-Qadīmah in Usūl. The composition of al-Risālah came about at the request of Imām ʿAbd ar-Rahmān ibn Mahdī (d. 198 AH), who wrote to ash-Shāfiʿī asking him to compose a work explaining the criteria by which rulings are derived from the sources of the Sharīʿah. When Imām ibn Mahdī received it, he was overcome and said, "I did not think there would have been someone in this Ummah today like this man."¹² He remained in Baghdad for two years during this stage, then returned to Makkah in 197 AH, and then to Baghdad once more in 198 AH for one final year, before the last and most momentous journey of his life.

His Move to Egypt and the Formation of the Qawl al-Jadīd

In 199 AH, ash-Shāfiʿī made the journey that would define the final and most luminous chapter of his life, travelling to Egypt. The reason scholars mention for this move is illuminating in itself: he had by now studied the Fiqh of the Hijāz, the Fiqh of ʿIrāq, the Fiqh of ash-Shām and the Fiqh of Yemen, yet had never had the opportunity to study the Fiqh of Egypt. And so he went, to complete what no scholar before him had completed. Imām ar-Rabīʿ al-Murādī (d. 270 AH), who accompanied his teacher on this journey, relates a telling exchange. He said that ash-Shāfiʿī asked him, "How did you leave the people of Egypt?" He replied, "Before I left, I found them to be in two groups: one inclines towards the statements of Imām Mālik and relies upon him, and the other inclines towards the statements of Imām ʾAbū Hanīfah and relies upon him." Ash-Shāfiʿī said, "I hope to visit Egypt, In Shāʾ Allāh ﷻ, and bring something that would preoccupy them from these." Imām ar-Rabīʿ commented, "And by Allāh ﷻ, he did exactly this when he entered Egypt."¹³

In Egypt he studied the Fiqh of Imām Layth ibn Saʿd, examining it with the same thoroughness with which he had examined every school before it. After having engaged in discourses with the opposing scholars, debating them and scrutinising their positions, and after having comprehensively examined the views of the Companions, the Tābiʿīn and the Imāms who had come before him, there emerged from this immense intellectual labour what came to be known as his Qawl al-Jadīd, his new and fully revised school of legal thought. Whereas the Qawl al-Qadīm had still carried traces of the influence of Imām Mālik, the Qawl al-Jadīd was the fruit of a completely independent and comprehensive examination of all that had come before, untethered from any single preceding school. Imām al-Khatīb al-Baghdādī demonstrated with great precision how ash-Shāfiʿī's works bear witness to his mastery of the Fiqh of every city and every tradition.¹⁴

Here in Egypt he authored Kitāb al-Umm in Furūʿ and al-Risālah al-Jadīdah in Usūl, the two works by which generations of scholars would come to know him. Imām ibn Hajar al-Haytamī marvelled at what was accomplished in so short a time, stating, "From the extraordinary occurrences that no other Mujtahid has ever achieved is ash-Shāfiʿī deriving and composing his Madhab al-Jadīd, with its extensive scope, in around four years."¹⁵ The arrival of ash-Shāfiʿī in Egypt caused both the Mālikī and Hanafī schools there to recede, and two of his greatest students in Egypt, Imām al-Buwaytī (d. 231 AH) and Imām al-Muzanī (d. 264 AH), had themselves been Mālikī and Hanafī respectively before attaching themselves to his school.

From all of this it becomes clear that ash-Shāfiʿī is distinguished from the other three great Imāms by three unique qualities that Allāh ﷻ reserved for him alone: he is the only Imām to have authored works in both the Usūl and the Furūʿ of his own Madhab, the only Imām to have developed two distinct and complete Madhāhib, and accordingly the only Imām who revised and scrutinised all of his previous legal positions with full independence and thoroughness. As Shaykh Mishārī ibn Saʿīd ash-Shatrī observed, "Ash-Shāfiʿī did not merely follow in anyone's footsteps; instead, he was a unique visionary who stood as an unparalleled figure in the history of Islamic jurisprudence."¹⁶

Footnotes

1. Imām al-Bayhaqī's caution here is characteristic of his rigorous standards in attribution. The coincidence of the two dates, even if not firmly established, carries a profound symbolic resonance that the scholars of the tradition did not fail to appreciate. ↩

2. Al-ʾUns al-Jalīl bi Tārīkh al-Quds wa al-Khalīl, 2/136. ↩

3. Imām ʾAhmad ibn Hanbal said, "The statement of ash-Shāfiʿī in the Arabic language is a Hujjah." Imām ʾAbū ʿUthmān al-Māzinī said, "According to us, ash-Shāfiʿī is a Hujjah in grammar." Imām ibn Hishām said, "Ash-Shāfiʿī is the one from whom Arabic language is taken." And Imām ʿAbd al-Mālik ibn Hishām an-Nahwī, after a discourse with him, declared, "I did not think that Allāh ﷻ had created someone like ash-Shāfiʿī", and used to call him the "Hujjah in language". [Manāqib ash-Shāfiʿī li al-Bayhaqī, 2/271] ↩

4. Manāqib ash-Shāfiʿī li al-Bayhaqī, 2/175. ↩

5. This is a point of some significance for understanding the development of ash-Shāfiʿī's independent legal thought. The sixteen years in Madīnah were years of deep absorption and formation, not yet of independent derivation. His independence would come later, and when it came, it came with full force. ↩

6. The trial before Hārūn ar-Rashīd stands as one of the most dramatic episodes in the biography of ash-Shāfiʿī. That a young scholar, brought before the most powerful ruler of his age in chains, could not only escape execution but leave the Caliph himself testifying to his perfection, speaks volumes about the force of his intellect, his composure and his reliance upon Allāh ﷻ. ↩

7. Manāqib ash-Shāfiʿī li al-Bayhaqī, 1/160. ↩

8. Manāqib ash-Shāfiʿī li al-Bayhaqī, 2/269. ↩

9. Al-Madkhal ilā Madhhab al-Imām ash-Shāfiʿī, 1/80. ↩

10. Tartīb al-Madārik, 1/91. ↩

11. Madkhal ilā Madhhab al-Imām ash-Shāfiʿī, 1/87. ↩

12. The full chain of transmission for the composition of al-Risālah is discussed in detail by Imām ʾAhmad Shākir in his celebrated tahqīq of the work. Some narrations mention that it was Imām al-Hārith ibn Surayj an-Naqqāl who carried al-Risālah to Imām ibn Mahdī. See: Tahqīq al-Risālah, 1/13. ↩

13. ʿAbqariyyat al-Imām ash-Shāfiʿī, 1/41. ↩

14. Imām al-Khatīb al-Baghdādī, who was himself first a Hanbalī then became a Shāfiʿī, granted ash-Shāfiʿī the titles Zayn al-Fuqahāʾ, Beauty of the Jurists, and Tāj al-ʿUlamāʾ, Crown of the Scholars. [Tārīkh Baghdād, 2/392] ↩

15. Tuhfat al-Muhtāj, 1/240. ↩

16. ʿAbqariyyat al-Imām ash-Shāfiʿī, 1/27. ↩