Al-Shafi'i

Muhammad ibn Idris al-Shafi'i (767-820), known as Al-Shafi'i, was a Muslim scholar, jurist and theologian whose name is attached to one of the four major schools of Sunni law, the Shafi'i school. Writing in Arabic, he is regarded as the founder of usul al-fiqh, the principles of Islamic jurisprudence. His importance lies in giving a systematic form to a field that had previously moved between local customs and scattered opinions.

He was born in Gaza, in what is now Palestine, into the Banu Muttalib clan of the Quraysh, a clan related to the Banu Hashim, the family of the Prophet Muhammad and the Abbasid caliphs. Tradition holds that his father died while he was still a child, and that his mother took him to Mecca when he was about two. He grew up in modest circumstances despite his lineage. It is said that, lacking paper, he wrote his lessons on bones. By seven he had memorised the Quran, and before fifteen he was authorised to issue legal opinions. He later went to Medina to study with Malik ibn Anas, whose Muwatta he knew by heart, and whom he always called his "Teacher", although he later disagreed with some of Malik's views.

His life was restless. He served as an Abbasid governor in Najran, in Yemen, but an accusation of aiding an Alid revolt brought him in chains before the caliph Harun al-Rashid. According to the most accepted account, his defence saved him, and the episode brought him close to Muhammad al-Shaybani, a Hanafi jurist who became his teacher in Baghdad. There he developed a first school, shaped by Abu Hanifa and Malik, and debated with Hanafi jurists, though accounts disagree about who won those debates. Around 804 he returned to Mecca, where he lectured at the Sacred Mosque and influenced Ahmad ibn Hanbal. After further time in Baghdad, he settled in Egypt, where he produced the final version of his Risala and much of the Kitab al-Umm, dictating them to disciples who read the texts back aloud so that errors could be corrected.

His best-known work, al-Risala, is among the earliest treatises on the principles of Islamic law. In it he set out rules for using the Quran and the sunna, and gave careful method to qiyas, or analogical reasoning, seeking a middle path between conservative traditionalism and unchecked legal innovation. His approach reshaped Islamic legal theory and influenced later generations of jurists.

His legacy lives on in the Shafi'i school, one of the four great schools of Sunni Islam, with a strong presence in Egypt, Southeast Asia and elsewhere. He died in Fustat in 820 and was buried there. Saladin is said to have built a madrasa and shrine at his tomb, and a mausoleum was later erected in 1211. To this day, some visitors still go to his tomb to ask for justice.