04

The Shafii school

المذهب الشافعي

Muhammad ibn Idris al-Shafii · d. 204 AH

The school of the imam who wrote usul as a book. al-Risalah is the method. al-Umm is the furu of his Egyptian years (the “new” school). Al-Nawawi later gathered the mutamad in the Minhaj. Hijaz, Sham, Yemen, East Africa, and the Malay world still walk that road.

1. الرسالة

   al-Risalah

   al-Shafii

   Usul al-fiqh as a written craft. The method of the school.

2. الأم

   al-Umm

   al-Shafii

   His Egyptian fiqh. The “new” school that later Shafiis follow.

3. مختصر المزني

   Mukhtasar al-Muzani

   al-Muzani (d. 264 AH)

   The earliest abridgement of the imam. A door into al-Umm.

4. المهذب

   al-Muhadhdhab

   al-Shirazi (d. 476 AH)

   A complete early matn. Al-Nawawi’s Majmu is a sharh of it.

5. منهاج الطالبين

   Minhaj al-Talibin

   al-Nawawi (d. 676 AH)

   The spine. Later shuruh argue over its words.

6. المجموع

   al-Majmu

   al-Nawawi

   His great sharh of the Muhadhdhab. Unfinished, unmatched for dalil.

7. متن أبي شجاع

   Matn Abi Shuja (al-Ghayah wa al-Taqrib)

   Abu Shuja (d. 593 AH)

   The beginner’s matn from Java to Hadramawt.

8. تحفة المحتاج

   Tuhfat al-Muhtaj

   Ibn Hajar al-Haytami (d. 974 AH)

   On the Minhaj. One of the two later mutamad shuruh.

9. نهاية المحتاج

   Nihayat al-Muhtaj

   al-Ramli (d. 1004 AH)

   The other later mutamad. When Tuhfah and Nihayah differ, teachers have a known tarjih.

Al-Nawawi and al-Rafii are the two who edited the school. The later mutamad is Ibn Hajar and al-Ramli upon Nawawi’s Minhaj.