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Further reading: Vincent Cornell, Realm of the Saint:
Power and Authority in Moroccan Sufism (Austin: Uni-
versity of Texas Press, 1998); Michael Gilsenan, Saint
and Sufi in Modern Egypt (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1973); Muhammad ibn Abi al-Qasim Ibn al-Sab-
bagh, The Mystical Teachings of al-Shadhili: Including His
Life, His Prayers, Letters, and Followers. Translated by
Elmer Douglas (Albany: State University of New York
Press, 1993); Annemarie Schimmel, Mystical Dimen-
sions of Islam (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, 1975); J. Spencer Trimingham, The Sufi Orders in
Islam (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971).
shafaa
See
intercession
.
Shafii, Muhammad ibn Idris al-
(767–820)
leading legal theorist and eponymous founder of the
Shafii Legal School
Known as the “father of Muslim jurisprudence”
(
fiqh
), al-Shafii was born in the area of Gaza in
p
alestine
to an a
rab
family that claimed descent
from the prophet m
Uhammad
(ca. 570–632). He
grew up in m
ecca
and is reported to have become
skilled in archery and the composition of Arabic
poetry. He studied
hadith
and law with m
alik
ibn
a
nas
(d. 795) in m
edina
for 10 years. Biographi-
cal sources report that al-Shafii became involved
with a pro-Shii group in Yemen and was brought
to b
aghdad
, the flourishing capital of the a
bbasid
c
aliphate
for punishment. The caliph h
arUn
al
-r
ashid
(r. 786–809) reportedly pardoned him
as a result of the intercession of al-Shaybani (d.
804), a leading Hanafi jurist who had also studied
with Malik. Al-Shafii stayed in i
raq
to study fiqh
with al-Shaybani and the other early founders of
the h
anaFi
l
egal
s
chool
, but then he moved
to Fustat (later part of c
airo
) in e
gypt
. Maliki
jurists there rejected him because he was critical
of Maliki legal theory, having been influenced by
the teachings of both the Hanafis and a
hmad
ibn
h
anbal
(d. 855). Indeed, he may even have been
murdered there by a Maliki faction. He was buried
in Cairo’s Southern Cemetery, where his mosque-
tomb has become a major shrine. A
mawlid
(saint
festival) is held there annually, and devotees are
known to bring letters to him requesting his
intercession in legal matters. The legal school that
bears his name developed into one of the lead-
ing ones in Islamdom during the Middle Ages
and continues to prevail in e
ast
a
Frica
, parts of
Yemen, South i
ndia
, i
ndonesia
, and m
alaysia
.
Al-Shafii’s major writings are the Risala (Trea-
tise) and Kitab al-umm (Book of Guidance). In
these and shorter works he laid the groundwork
for what would become the prevailing system of
Islamic jurisprudence. On the one hand, he rejected
the Maliki position that law had to be based on the
living example of the community in Medina. On
the other, he strongly opposed the Hanafi school’s
acceptance of reasoned opinion (ray) in legal rea-
K 616
shafaa
soning because it was too arbitrary. Indeed, some
rationalists wanted to bypass the hadith altogether.
Instead, al-Shafii argued that all law should be
derived from revelation, especially the q
Uran
and
the
sUnna
of Muhammad, as witnessed by the
hadith. Rather than completely reject independent
legal reasoning, he allowed for the use of analogical
reasoning (qiyas), but subordinated it to
revela
-
tion
. It could be conducted only when it was based
on the literal meaning of the Quran and hadith.
This provided jurists some flexibility in apply-
ing legal precedents based on revelation to new
situations. For example, while the Quran explicitly
forbids the consumption of grape wine (khamr),
the ban on other alcoholic beverages, such as other
kinds of wine and hard liquor, was legitimized by
arguing on the basis of an analogy that, like grape
wine, they have an intoxicating effect. Al-Shafii’s
legal theory contributed significantly to the devel-
opment of Islamic jurisprudence, which remains in
effect today for many Muslims.
See also
ijtihad
; s
haFii
l
egal
s
chool
;
sharia
.
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