Imam Shafi'i

Scholar and Saint

Kecia Ali

• Publisher: Oneworld Academic
• Year: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781780740041
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Religious Biographies

Muhammad ibn Idris al-Shafi'i (767-820) was one of Islam's foundational legal thinkers. Shafi'i considered law vital to social and cosmic order: the key obligation of each Muslim was to obey God, and it was through knowing and following the law that human beings fulfilled this duty. Drawing on the most recent scholarship on Shafi'i's work as well as her own investigations into his life and writings, Kecia Ali explores Shafi'i's innovative ideas about the nature of revelation and the necessary if subordinate role of human reason in extrapolating legal rules from revealed texts. This study sketches his life in his intellectual and social context, including his engagement with other early figures including Malik and Muhammad al-Shaybani. It explores the development and refinement of his legal method and substantive teachings as well as their transmission by his students. It also shows how he became the posthumous "patron saint" of a legal school, who remains today a figure of popular interest and veneration as well as a powerful symbol of orthodoxy.

1

ARABIAN YEARS

Everyone agrees where Shafi‘i died but no one is quite certain where he was born.A short narration of his life, extracted from a sea of hagiographical material in the massive biographical compendium of Ibn Khallikan (d. 681/1283), begins by alluding to these controversies:

His birth was in the year 150, and it has been said that he was born on the day Abu Hanifa died. His birth was in the city of Gaza. Some have said in Ashkelon, and some have said in Yemen, but the first is sounder. He was taken from Gaza to Mecca when he was a boy of two and raised there. He recited the Noble Qur’an. The account of his journey to study with Malik ibn Anas is famous and there is no need to tell it at length. He arrived in Baghdad in the year 195 and stayed there two years, then left for Mecca. He returned to Baghdad in 198 and stayed there a month, then left for Egypt. He arrived there in 199, though some say 201. He stayed there until he died on Friday, the last day of Rajab in the year 204. He was buried after the afternoon prayer that day in the Lesser Qarafa. His grave, near Mount Muqattam, is visited [by the pious]. May God be pleased with him.

(IK 23)

This sketch does not mention a sojourn in Yemen or a spell with the Bedouin, and some would quibble over dates, but this is a reasonable summary of his trajectory: from Palestine to Mecca to Medina to Iraq, back to Mecca, back to Iraq, and finally to Egypt. Ibn Abi Hatim al-Razi’s (d. 326–7/938) catalogue of Shafi‘i’s Manners and Virtues, our earliest relatively full biographical source, mentions the two possibilities which Ibn Khallikan rejects. “I was born in Yemen,” Shafi‘i here declares. Or, alternately, “I was born in Ashkelon” (IAH 21). (Ashkelon is a town not far from Gaza.) Gaza becomes standard by the time medieval biographers compose their accounts. The mention of Yemen is explained as a reference to his mother’s presumed Yemeni ancestry. Occasionally, some have cited the town of Mina near Mecca as his birthplace, but I will assume that he is Palestinian-born.

SHAFI‘I’S ANCESTRY

Of his father, we know only his impeccable Arab pedigree and that he died when Shafi‘i was young. Shafi‘i explained his impoverished mother’s decision to move to Mecca once she was left with charge of her young son – most agree with Ibn Khallikan that the move took place when he was two, although a few accounts say ten – as a means of claiming his birthright. Shafi‘á’s full name, and hence genealogy, is: Muhammad ibn Idris ibn al-‘Abbas ibn ‘Uthman ibn Shafi‘ ibn al-Sa’ib ibn ‘Ubayd ibn ‘Abd Yazid ibn Hashim ibn al-Mutallib ibn ‘Abd Manaf al-Qurashi al-Mutallibi, Abu ‘Abdallah al-Shafi‘i al-Makki. That is to say, he is Muhammad, the son of Idris, the son of al-‘Abbas etc., of the Mutallib clan of the Quraysh tribe. His appellation “Abu ‘Abdallah,” sometimes used by colleagues, was given by the time he was in his teens, before any of his children were born; it expressed hope that he would father a son who would, as the name ‘Abdallah implies, be a devoted servant of God. His wife apparently called him Ibn Idris, as did others on occasion. His colleagues and students usually referred to him as Shafi‘i, as I will. It means “intercessor.”

Shafi‘i’s lineage was particularly illustrious. Though he was not a direct descendant of the Prophet, they shared a tribe (Quraysh) as well as an ancestor (‘Abd Manaf). The Prophet’s great-grandfather Hashim was the brother of al-Mutallib, Shafi‘i’s many-times great grandfather. ‘Abd Manaf had two other sons but the connection between the Prophet’s clan and Shafi‘i’s clan was close. Muhammad reportedly once declared that “The Hashim clan and the Mutallib clan are one and the same” (Abu Zahra 1948, 15; IAH 123). Shafi‘i’s sobriquet “the Mutallibi” emphasizes this noble origin. His connection to the Prophet is also played up in the designation “the Prophet’s cousin” (ibn ‘am Rasulallah), literally “son of the paternal uncle of the Messenger of God.” Both names continue to be used to the present day. (Occasional later detractors asserted that his tie to the tribe was one of clientage not descent. In seeking to disparage him, presumably groundlessly, these charges point to the cachet Arab heritage conferred.)

Between ‘Abd Manaf in the remote past and Shafi‘i’s immediate progenitors there were a few notable figures. His great-great-great-grandfather Sa’ib ibn ‘Ubayd served as Hashemite standard-bearer at the decisive battle of Badr (2/624), where the Muslims trounced their Meccan opponents. Taken prisoner, Sa’ib ransomed himself and then converted to Islam. Since Muslims customarily freed converts without payment, Sa’ib was asked why he did not convert immediately. He replied that he did not want to deprive the Muslims of benefits expected from the ransom. The other ancestral accomplishment routinely mentioned along with Shafi‘i’s genealogy is that, as a young man, Sa’ib’s son Shafi‘, Shafi‘i’s great-great-grandfather, once met the Prophet.

Befitting someone with his background, Shafi‘i became an expert in genealogy. Knowing names and ancestors helped keep track of those who reported on the deeds of the Prophet. It also mattered for assessing people. Shafi‘i was unencumbered by any notion of the innate equality of all humankind, except perhaps in a general religious sense. Like many of his contemporaries, he thought that Arabs were inherently superior to non-Arabs in certain respects – linguistic competence being perhaps the most important – and that some Arabs were superior to others. His genealogical expertise was not limited to patrilineal descent. After an all-nighter spent discussing women’s lineages with colleagues, he scoffed, “Anyone can know men’s lineages” (B 1:489).

In Shafi‘i’s case, it is his mother’s ancestry rather than his father’s that provokes speculation. She probably belonged to the Yemeni ‘Azd tribe. A colorful but unlikely account traces her descent in a direct male line from ‘Ali ibn Abi Talib’s union with the Prophet’s daughter Fatima, making her the Prophet’s great-great-granddaughter and linking her to the “people of the house,” a phrase reserved for the Prophet’s family, specifically ‘Ali – who was the Prophet’s paternal cousin as well as his son-in-law – Fatima, and their children. Fatima would thus have been not only Shafi‘i’s mother’s ancestor but also her namesake. An alternate genealogy provides an additional link to ‘Ali through one of Shafi‘i’s aunts, making his connection to ‘Ali even closer than his connection to the Prophet. Shafi‘i may be “the Prophet’s paternal cousin” but ‘Ali, in this telling, is his cousin twice over. Regardless of whether he has a double helping of Hashemite ancestry, the closeness between Shafi‘i and ‘Ali is played up repeatedly, including in a series of dreams he reportedly experienced.

EARLY EDUCATION

Shafi‘i’s lineage is of great interest to his traditional biographers; his childhood is not. Modern biography roots adult life choices in the psychologically formative experiences of youth, granting early influences premium explanatory power. In contrast, premodern Arabic biography reports little beyond the conventional about anyone’s childhood. We possess only a few formulaic anecdotes about his early years, involving his primary religious education and his aristocratic pursuits including archery and poetry.

He grew up poor in Mecca’s Shi’b al-Khayf neighborhood. He obtained an education at the local Qur’an school (kuttab) despite his straitened circumstances. Since his mother could not afford to pay the instructor, Shafi‘i earned his keep by tutoring the younger students. He memorized the Qur’an by age seven, an age that recurs in scholarly biographies. He then recited it before Isma‘il ibn ‘Abdullah ibn Qustantin, a leading Meccan authority on qira’at (readings or recitations of the Qur’an) who was also a grammarian. Shafi‘i was thus initiated into the practice of authorized oral transmission that characterized religious scholarship.

In the second half of the eighth century, when Shafi‘i began his study of the religious sciences, Mecca was an important center for scholarship. Medina, where he later studied, had been the Muslims’ capital during the lifetime of the Prophet and his immediate successors. The Umayyads (661–750) had moved the capital to Damascus. Around 762, a dozen years after the Abbasid revolution and five years before Shafi‘i’s birth, the caliph al-Mansur (r. 136–58/754–75) shifted the imperial capital to the newly founded Baghdad, where Shafi‘i – or so the story goes – would eventually appear before his grandson Harun al-Rashid (r. 170–93/786–809). But Mecca remained important despite its distance from the court. Some Meccan scholars descended from the Prophet’s Companions; others had migrated to the city. Pilgrims from throughout the increasingly vast Muslim empire became part of the immense transfer and exchange of knowledge from one generation to the next and from one part of the world to another.

Scholarly activity flourished in Mecca’s main mosque near the Ka‘ba. In addition to serving as places of communal prayer, mosques were bases for trading and socializing, as well as the primary location where secondary religious instruction took place. Designated locations within the mosque housed teaching circles. Precise etiquettes attended such gatherings. These included the placement of groupings within the mosque space – some pillars were more prestigious than others; some circles needed more space than others – and the position of listeners relative to the teacher.

At the mosque, Shafi‘i began his advanced lessons which included the study of hadith (reports about the Prophet and his Companions) and investigation of their precedents and responses on matters of legal import. Shafi‘i’s teachers included two Meccan scholars of particular repute. Muslim ibn Khalid al-Zanji (d. 179/795 or 180/796) was mufti (jurisconsult) of the city. He first authorized Shafi‘i to deliver legal opinions (fatwas) at the tender age of fifteen or eighteen: “Give fatwas, Abu ‘Abdallah” (Ibn Hajar 1994, 24). Sufyan ibn ‘Uyayna (d. 198/814) was a renowned Kufan-born hadith scholar whom Shafi‘i reportedly declared better at explaining hadith and more qualified to give legal opinions than anyone else he had ever met. He is also known for having had an interest in exegetical (tafsir) traditions, and it may have been through him that Shafi‘i developed his abiding interest in matters concerned with Qur’an interpretation and the narratives associated with the revelation of specific passages.

Despite his intellectual aptitude, Shafi‘i continued to face economic obstacles to pursuing his education. His mother did not have enough money to purchase papyrus so he was forced to take notes haphazardly, scribbling on pieces of bone or writing on his own forearm in saliva. Accounts which tell of the latter are, perhaps, less interested in his improvised writing implements than in making the point that his memory was so prodigious that he could memorize things written in that fashion before the spit had dried.

DESERT WANDERINGS

It was desirable for urban Arabs of noble descent to perfect their Arabic in the desert, free from the corrupting influences of foreign dialects that had infiltrated the language of cities and towns. A period of fostering with a Bedouin tribe was a rite of passage for elite boys. At some point before or after his Meccan studies, Shafi‘i reportedly lived with the Hudhayl tribe, whom he describes as “the most eloquent of the Arabs.” There, he learned martial skills such as horsemanship, without distinguishing himself particularly, and archery. He was a passionate and skilled archer. He reports practicing “until I was hitting the bull’s eye ten times out of ten” (Ibn Hajar 1994, 24). A more modest report has nine times out of ten – more plausible, still impressive. Shafi‘i’s reputation as an archer survived the centuries. The fourteenth-century Ottoman author Yunani includes in his treatise on military and recreational archery an anecdote where Shafi‘i encounters a descendant of Sa‘d ibn Abi Waqqas, who wielded bow and arrow in defense of the Prophet at the Battle of ‘Uhud (3/625), and proves his own merit to her by listing essential practices for an archer.

Poetry was Shafi‘i’s other pursuit during these years. An account on the authority of his grandson Muhammad, identified as “the son of Shafi‘i’s daughter” rather than by patronymic, says that Shafi‘i spent two decades learning Arabic and tribal stories with the Hudhayl. Another source says seventeen years. He mastered the Hudhayl poetic canon, memorizing, it is said, 10,000 lines of their tribal poetry. It is more plausible – if in fact the interlude is not pure invention – that he studied Qur’an and hadith in Mecca and then spent several years in the desert learning poetry and “Bedouin stories” (ayyam al-‘arab) before returning to Mecca to resume or begin his study of jurisprudence.

As an adult, Shafi‘i continued to compose and recite poetry. His biographers laud his skill in poetic memorization, recitation, and composition. Ibn Khallikan reports that even the luminary al-Asma‘i (d. 213/828) read Hudhayl poems under Shafi‘i’s supervision. Rather than seeing in poetry a detour from the path of religious knowledge, his contemporaries saw it as a complementary pursuit. Indeed, it is difficult to overstate the importance of linguistic mastery to the Arab intellectual elite of the time. Poetry was inextricably linked to the Arabic language, and language to revelation. Shafi‘i sprinkles his legal writings with couplets of his own composition, to elucidate points of usage or to add literary savor. His poetic dabbling was not unique; many respectable scholars wrote poetry which their biographers quote, sometimes at length. Shafi‘i was not known for the lewd verse that even some scholars with impeccable reputations composed, much less the kind that characterized the oeuvre of his contemporary, the bawdy poet Abu Nuwas. Instead, the Diwan or Collected Poems attributed to Shafi‘i ranges over many themes but lingers over knowledge and its opposite. Shafi‘i elsewhere reportedly deemed seeking knowledge preferable to voluntary prayer.

JOURNEY TO MEDINA

Shafi‘i soon departed for Medina, the first destination on his “journey in search of knowledge” (rihla li talab al-‘ilm). Medina’s reputation as a center for religious learning was consolidated during the lifetime of Malik ibn Anas (d. 179/796). Born between 90 and 97 hijri (708–16 CE), Malik studied with several respected Successors (the generation after the Companions) and those of the following generation. Malik became the most reliable source for Medinan positions on legal matters of ritual, commerce, and family. His book the Muwatta’ (The Well-Trodden Path or The Approved) conveys the legal state of affairs in Medina. Organized by topic, it includes statements transmitted directly from Muhammad, the views of his Companions – including their occasional disagreements – and the doctrines of earlier Medinan authorities. Its major goal is to establish the authoritative practice of the local community, felt best to represent the Prophet’s example. Often, discussion of a point will be summed up with Malik’s statement affirming a local consensus: “That is the way we do things.”

Shafi‘i was apparently already acquainted with the Muwatta’ when he set out to meet Malik. In one version, Shafi‘i seeks letters of introduction from the governor of Mecca to the governor of Medina and Malik himself. In another, Shafi‘i is an importunate youngster whose only recommendation is his familiarity with Malik’s work, obtained from a text he borrowed. Shafi‘i recalls: “I came to Malik ibn Anas, and I had memorized the Muwatta’. He said to me, I will find someone to recite it to you. I said, I can recite it. So I recited the Muwatta’ to him from memory (hafizan)” (IK 22). In other versions of this anecdote, Malik takes more persuading before he eventually relents and permits Shafi‘i to recite the text. He does so flawlessly. Malik is reluctantly but thoroughly impressed. At one point, Shafi‘i intends to stop reciting but, he recalls, “the beauty of my recitation pleased him and he said, ‘Continue, young man’” (‘Abd al-Salam 1988, 43).

ORAL AND WRITTEN

This encounter highlights the complicated interplay between written texts and oral performances of these texts. When he seeks out Malik, the senior scholar assumes that Shafi‘i should follow the usual procedure of having one of Malik’s disciples recite the text to him. This mode of transmission, where the scholar recites and the student listens is known as sama‘ or “hearing.” (If a text was involved, students would check their copy of the text against the teacher’s lecture.) Shafi‘i was able, instead, to proceed by qira’a, reading of the text back to the scholar. Though he recollects reciting the Muwatta’ by heart, more usually students would read a text they had copied back to the teacher, so that the teacher could correct mistakes. (Texts could also be transmitted by dictation [imla’], and students could also simply take lecture notes while listening to a scholar speak, possibly from prepared notes.)

Gregor Schoeler has written extensively on the question of oral and written transmission in early Islamic history. In his view, lectures delivered from written notes were more frequent than those delivered from memory. Notebooks certainly served as reminders, especially given the length and complexity of texts under study. These notebooks could be used to refresh one’s own memory or teach later students, as well as eventually to circulate works in a more polished form. The production of written texts from oral encounters was a key element of early legal practice. Shafi‘i undoubtedly relied on notes in giving some of his lectures and, as we will see later, Shafi‘i’s main work of substantive law is based on the detailed lecture notes of one of his students. Authorship was sometimes a collective endeavor, with author and transmitter not entirely distinguished until decades or perhaps a century after his lifetime.

Some texts were simply transmitted from writing to writing without the safeguard of oral checking and, possibly, elaboration. One might make a copy for oneself or pay a professional copyist. But in both hadith scholarship and in the emerging discipline of juris...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Epigraph
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1. Arabian Years
• 2. From student to shaykh
• 3. Legal Theory I:The Risala, Sunna, and Hadith
• 4. Legal Theory II: Analogy, Ijtihad, and consensus
• 5. The umm and substantive law
• 6. Saint Shafi‘I
• Conclusion
• Further Reading
• Bibliography
• Index