ن

المذهب الشافعي

The Shafi'i School

Imam Muhammad ibn Idris al-Shafi'i · 767 – 820 CE (150 – 204 AH)

Egypt, the Levant, East Africa, Southeast Asia

Legal method

Systematised legal theory: the Quran, then authentic Sunnah, then consensus, then analogy — in a strict, documented order. His Risala founded the science of usul al-fiqh.

Introduction

The Shafi'i school takes its shape from al-Shafi'i's insistence that every ruling be tied to an identified text and that the methods for reaching it be stated openly. He studied with both the Madinan and the Iraqi traditions and produced the first systematic legal theory in Islam before writing his own body of substantive law in Egypt.

Principles of the school

  • •Quran and authenticated Sunnah rank together; a sound single-narrator report is binding.
  • •Consensus, then analogy — and only analogy; istihsan is explicitly rejected as a source.
  • •The statements of individual companions are weighed but do not override a sound report.
  • •Legal theory (usul) is stated in advance and applied consistently.

Distinctive positions

  • •Basmala is recited aloud as a verse of the Fatiha.
  • •Qunut is recited in the dawn prayer after bowing.
  • •Touching the opposite sex breaks ablution.
  • •Zakat is paid to the categories physically present in the locality where it is due.

Chain of scholars

  1. Muhammad ibn Idris al-Shafi'i

    150–204 AH

    Founder, author of al-Risala and al-Umm

  2. Al-Rabi' ibn Sulayman al-Muradi

    174–270 AH

    Chief transmitter of al-Umm

  3. Al-Muzani

    175–264 AH

    Author of the influential Mukhtasar

  4. Al-Ghazali

    450–505 AH

    Author of al-Wasit and al-Wajiz

  5. Al-Rafi'i

    555–623 AH

    Editor of the school's positions

  6. Al-Nawawi

    631–676 AH

    Author of Minhaj al-Talibin

  7. Ibn Hajar al-Haytami and al-Ramli

    10th century AH

    Define the relied-upon rulings

Where it is followed

Egypt and the Levant, the Hijaz and Yemen, Kurdistan and the Caucasus, coastal East Africa, and the largest Shafi'i populations today in Indonesia, Malaysia, southern Thailand and the Philippines.

Scholar Books Library · Shafi'i

الأم

Al-Umm

Imam al-Shafi'i · Fiqh

The foundational corpus of Shafi'i jurisprudence, dictated by the Imam himself and covering worship, transactions and judicial procedure with full evidence.

الرسالة

Al-Risala

Imam al-Shafi'i · Usul al-Fiqh

The first systematic treatise on legal theory, defining how the Quran, Sunnah, consensus and analogy interact.

منهاج الطالبين

Minhaj al-Talibin

Imam al-Nawawi · Fiqh

The reference manual of the later Shafi'i school, prized for its precision and used as the base text for centuries of commentary.

الأربعون النووية

Al-Arba'un an-Nawawiyya (The Forty Hadith)

Imam Yahya ibn Sharaf al-Nawawi · Hadith

Forty-two narrations that Imam al-Nawawi judged to be pillars of the religion — the most widely taught free study text in the Muslim world.