Shāfiʿiyyah

The Shāfiʿī Madhab has historically been affiliated with al-ʾAsḥʿariyyah in matters of theological creed, a relationship so deeply embedded in the tradition that the two have been described as complementary pillars of Sunnī orthodoxy across much of the Islamic world. Al-ʾImām ʾAbu-l-Ḥasan al-ʾAsḥʿarī رحمه الله himself was Shāfiʿī in Fiqh, as were the two greatest systematisers of the ʾAsḥʿarī school after him, al-ʾImām al-Juwaynī (d. 478 AH) and al-ʾImām al-Ghazzālī (d. 505 AH), both of whom are simultaneously the central pillars of the Shāfiʿī Madhab in Fiqh.

However it would be inaccurate to suggest that all scholars of the Madhab were ʾAsḥʿarī in creed. Among the Shāfiʿī scholars there have also been those who adhered to a more strictly ʾAtharī orientation in matters of the divine attributes. Al-ʾImām ʾIbn Khuzaymah (d. 311 AH), author of Kitābu-t-Tawḥīd, al-ʾImām ad-Dāraquṭnī (d. 385 AH), author of Kitābu-ṣ-Ṣifāt, al-ʾImām ʾAbū Bakr al-ʾIsmāʿīlī (d. 371 AH), author of ʾIʿtiqādu ʾAʾimmati-l-Ḥadīth, and al-ʾImām al-Lālikāʾī (d. 418 AH), author of Sharḥu ʾUṣūli ʾIʿtiqādi ʾAhli-s-Sunnah, are among the foremost Shāfiʿī scholars who approached creed from a more ʾAtharī standpoint. What unites both orientations within the Madhab is the common commitment to the creed of ʾAhlu-s-Sunnah wa-l-Jamāʿah, the absolute transcendence (tanzīh) of Allāh ﷻ, and the rejection of all innovation in the foundations of belief.

The broader Shāfiʿī tradition affirms the divine attributes as they come in revelation, upholds the absolute incomparability of Allāh ﷻ with His creation, and categorically rejects both tashbīh (anthropomorphism) and taʿṭīl (negation of the attributes). On matters of the Ṣaḥābah, the Madhab is firmly among ʾAhlu-s-Sunnah in affirming the uprightness (ʿadālah) of all the Companions, loving the entire household of the Prophet ﷺ, and holding that the conflicts among the Companions are to be approached with restraint and the best interpretation sought for all parties.

On Taṣawwuf and Tazkiyyah, the Shāfiʿī tradition has been intimately connected with the science of the purification of the soul from its earliest days. Al-ʾImām Junayd al-Baghdādī رحمه الله, known as Sayyidu-ṭ-Ṭāʾifah and the leader of the ascetics by consensus, was Shāfiʿī, as was his teacher al-ʾImām al-Ḥārith al-Muḥāsibī. The foremost works in this science, Qūtu-l-Qulūb of al-ʾImām ʾAbū Ṭālib al-Makkī, ar-Risālah al-Qushayriyyah of al-ʾImām al-Qushayrī, and ʾIḥyāʾu ʿUlūmi-d-Dīn of al-ʾImām al-Ghazzālī, were all authored by Shāfiʿī scholars. Al-ʾImām al-Muzanī رحمه الله, perhaps the greatest student of al-ʾImām ash-Shāfiʿī, captured this dimension of the tradition when he said:

"I am only a manner from the manners of al-ʾImām ash-Shāfiʿī."