Shafi'i

This article forms part of the series Islam

Vocabulary of Islam

Five Pillars

Profession of faith

Prayer - Alms

Fasting

Pilgrimage to Mecca

Holy Cities

Mecca - Medina

Jerusalem

Najaf - Karbala - Kufa

Events

Hijra - Islamic calendar - Eid ul-Fitr

Eid ul-Adha - Aashura - Arba'in

Buildings

Mosque - Minaret

Mihrab - Kaaba

Islamic architecture

Functional Religious Roles

Muezzin - Imam - Mullah

Ayatollah - Mufti

Interpretive Texts & Practices

Qur'an - Hadith - Sunnah

Fiqh - Fatwa - Sharia

Sects

Sunni (Schools of thought: Hanafi, Hanbali, Maliki, Shafi'i)

Shi'a: Ithna Asharia, Ismailiyah, Zaiddiyah

Others: Mu'tazili - Kharijite

Movements

Sufism

Wahhabism - Salafism

Non-Mainstream Sects/Movements

Ahmadiyyah

Related Faiths

Druze; Bahá'í Faith

Shafi'i is one of the four schools of Fiqh or religious law within Sunni Islam. Shafi'i is practiced throughout the Ummah, but is most prevalent in Egypt, Indonesia, Thailand, Singapore and the Philippines, and is the school of thought officially followed by the government of Brunei Darussalam and Malaysia. It is followed by approximately 15% of Muslims world-wide. [1]

The Shafi'i tradition is particularly accessible to English speaking Muslims due to the availability of high quality translations of the Reliance of the Traveller.

Muhammad Ibn Idris (150H - 204H) (767-820) (Imam Shafi'i) is an Arab born in Gaza, Palestine. Once a scholar to Imam Malik in Medina and Imam Muhammad Ibn Hassan in Baghdad.

The Shafi'i school of fiqh is based on Al-Quran (Koran), As-Sunnah, Al-Ijma', his companion's opinion (mostly Al-Khulafa Ar-Rasyidin) and Al-Qias. His famous books are Ar-Risalah and Al-Umm, they emphathize on instibat(firm law).

Shafi'ism is considered to be one of the more conservative of the four schools of Islamic jurisprudence, but there are many adherents of the Shafi'i tradition who maintain liberal views in practicing their religion.

The Shafi'i school of fiqh is named after its "founder": Muhammad ibn Idris ibn al-`Abbas, al-Imam al-Shafi`i, Abu `Abd Allah al-Shafi`i al-Hijazi al-Qurashi al-Hashimi al-Muttalibi (better known as Imam Shafi).

Some famous Shafi scholars

The followers of the Shafi school were noted jurists and scholars of Hadith to name a few are:

• ibn Hajr al-Asqalani author of the 'Fath al-Bari' the most valued of all commentries upon the Sahih al-Bukahri

• an-NawawiSufi, jurst and Hadith specialist. Author of the commentary upon the Sahih Muslim

• al-Ghazali nicknamed 'Hujjat al-Islam' or the 'proof of Islam' he was a famous Sufi and author of the 'Ihya Ulum ud-Din' the 'Revival of the religious sciences'

Help build the largest human-edited directory on the web.

Submit a Site - Open Directory Project - Become an Editor