Shafi`i
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The Shāfi‘ī madhab (شافعي) is one of the four schools of fiqh, or religious law, within Sunni Islam. The Shāfi‘ī school of fiqh is named after its founder, Imām ash-Shāfi‘ī. The other three schools of thought are Hanafi, Maliki, and Hanbali.
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[edit] Principles
The Shāfi‘ī School of thought stipulates authority to four sources of jurisprudence, also known as the Usul al-fiqh. In hierarchical order the usul al-fiqh consist of: the Quran, the Sunnah of the Prophet, ijma' (consensus), and qiyas. The Shāfi‘ī school also refers to the opinions of the Prophet's companions (primarily Al-Khulafa ar-Rashidun). The school, based on Shāfi‘ī's books ar-Risala fi Usul al-Fiqh and Kitāb al-Umm, which emphasizes proper istinbaat (derivation of laws) through the rigorous application of legal principles as opposed to speculation or conjecture.
Imam Shafi`i approached the imperatives of the Islamic Shariah (Canon Law) distinctly in his own systematic methodology. Imam Shafi`i, Imam Malik and Imam Ahmad Ibn Hanbal almost entirely exclude the exercise of private judgement in the exposition of legal principles. They are wholly governed by the force of precedents, adhering to the Scripture and Traditions; they also do not admit the validity of a recourse to analogical deduction of such an interpretation of the Law whereby its spirit is adopted to the special circumstances of any special case. Their followers are accordingly designated as "Ahlul-Hadith" or "Traditionalists Par Excellence', while the followers of Abu Hanifa are called "Ahlul Ra'i" - the "People of Private Judgement"
The Shāfi‘ī school is considered one of the more conservative of the four schools of Islamic jurisprudence, where religious science has evolved around this School and many traditional scholars adopted it to be the soundest School among all. Due to the School's systematic methodology and rigorous approach to religious science, huge arrays and vast majority of Islamic scholars and leading authorities have become staunch adherents of this School. Many among them represent the entire Ahlus Sunnah Wa Al-Jama'ah in their field.
The founder of this School, is also known as the "First Among Equals" for his exhaustive knowledge and systematic methodology to religious science. His approach to Islamic jurisprudence has become the standard reference of the scholars not only among his School but among others as well. There is a famous Fiqh maxim, "The Shafiites are the Pillars of Knowledge of this Religion." Among the giants of Islam who adopted this School are:-
Imam of Aqidah:
1) Abu Al-Hasan Ash'ari
Imam of Hadith:-
Imam Bukhari, Imam Muslim, Imam Nasa'ie, Imam Bayhaqi, Imam Tirmidhi, Imam Ibn Majah, Imam Tabari (who later became independent Mujtahid), Ibn Hajar Al-Asqalani, Imam Abu Dawud, Imam Nawawi, Imam As-Suyuti, Imam Ibn Kathir, Imam Dhahabi, Imam Al-Hakim
Imam of Fiqh:-
Khatib Shirbini, Ibn Hajar Haytami, Imam Nawawi
Imam of Tafser & Seerah:- Imam Mawardi, Ibn Kathir, Sheikh Khatib Al-Baghdadi
Other Leading Scholars:-
Imam Jalaluddin Al-Mahally, Imam Taqiyuddin As-Subki, Imam Tajuddin As-Subki, Sheikhul Islam Zakariyya Al-Ansari, Imam Ramli
[edit] History
As a member of the school of Medina, ash-Shāfi‘ī worked to combine the pragmatism of the Medina school with the contemporary pressures of the Traditionalists. The Traditionalists maintained that jurists could not independently adduce a practice as the sunnah of Propet Muhammad (SAW)based on ijtihad, or independent reasoning, but should only produce verdicts substantiated by authentic hadith.
Based on this claim, ash-Shāfi‘ī devised a method for systematic reasoning without relying on personal deduction. He argued that the only authoritative sunnah were those that were both of Prophet Muhammad (SAW) and passed down from Prophet Muhammad (SAW)himself. He also argued that sunnah contradicting the Quran were unacceptable, claiming that sunnah should only be used to explain the Quran. Furthermore, ash-Shāfi‘ī claimed that if a practice is widely accepted throughout the Muslim community, it cannot be in contradiction of sunnah.
[edit] Importance of the Shāfi‘ī School
The Shāfi‘ī school is followed throughout the Ummah and is the official Madhab of traditional scholars and leading authorities of Ahlus-Sunnah, but is most prevalent amongst Kurds in Kurdistan (in Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Iran) and by other communities in Egypt, Somalia, Yemen, the Hejaz in Saudi Arabia, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore, Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Maldives, Sri Lanka, State of Kerala in India, the district of Bhatkal in Karnataka in India, Mauritiana, Ethiopia, among Chechens in Kazakhstan, Israel and the Palestinian territories, most of Lebanon, Syria and is the official madhab followed by the government of Brunei Darussalam and Malaysia. As a matter of fact, the entire South East Asia embraced this School. It is followed by approximately 28% of Muslims world-wide, being the second largest School in terms of followers.
The Shāfi‘ī tradition is accessible to English speakers from the translation of the Reliance of the Traveller.
[edit] Criticisms of Shafi'i's methodology from an Islamic point of view
Shafi'i essentially says that all moral action must preceed from Quran and Sunnah, with little room for personal judgement even of the scholar of Islam who must follow analogical reasoning without much in the way of deduction and external (bidah) ideas and knowledge. This internalisation of Islam to debates of language in the Quran and Sunnah can be seen as a risk averse approach to moral life. That is given that one sees the Quran as coming from God then strict adherence to it is the least risky approach to getting into heaven since by following God's rules to the letter one can be assured of being rewarded. Some scholars (and people) believe this to be a false premise since the implicit assumption is that there are no good acts outside of those mentioned or derivable from the Quran and Sunnah. An example of this is the rule in the Quran to be good to one's parents. Strict adherence to Shafi'i would not allow us to use our synthetic knowledge (see below) of what our parents like to decide on how to be good to one's parents. So for example one parent may like sweets while another likes their car being washed. There is therefore no moral action that can be derived from the Quran without understanding of individual circumstances and the wide body of knowledge beyond what is often termed religious knowledge.
In this way we can see a contemporary perhaps liberal Islamic refinement of Shafi'i. All moral action must be derived through synthetic knowledge, that is through the interplay of religious principles and knowledge not mentioned or discussed in religion. In some ways this is fundamentalist since the Quran teaches the middle path of moderation and following the Quran's rules strictly is fundamentalist even if the outcome of this reasoning is closer to the liberal doctrines of the world.
[edit] Famous followers of this school
- Abdullah bin Ahmad Badawi - prime minister of Malaysia
- Nizam al-Mulk, the Persian Grand Vizier
- ibn Hajar al-Asqalani, author
- al-Nawawi, jurist
- al-Ghazali, author
- Al-Khatib al-Baghdadi
- Muhammad ibn Jarir al-Tabari, author
- Imam Bukhari
- Imam Muslim ibn Hajjaj
- Jalaludin Suyuti
- Ibn Kathir
- Zainuddin Makhdoom I and II, The Jurist and Historian (respectively) of Kerala
- Sheikh Safi al-Din Is'haq Ardabili
[edit] References
- Rippin, Andrew (2005). Muslims: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices (3rd ed.). London: Routledge. pp. 90-93. ISBN 0-415-34888-9.
- 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: Shafi'i's Risala. Cambridge: Islamic Texts Society. pp. 286.
- Imam Shafi And Al-Risala
