آداب الشافعي ومناقبه-الرسالة

Adab al-Shafi'i wa-Manaqibuhu

One of the early and important works devoted to the life and scholarship of Imām Muḥammad ibn Idrīs al-Shāfiʿī (d. 204 AH), compiled by the eminent ḥadīth critic Imām Ibn Abī Ḥātim al-Rāzī (d. 327 AH). This is the muhaqqaq edition published by Dār al-Risālah al-ʿĀlamiyyah.

Drawing upon early reports transmitted with their chains, Ibn Abī Ḥātim presents a rich portrait of al-Shāfiʿī as both scholar and individual. The work begins with his birth and early pursuit of knowledge, and records accounts concerning his teachers, learning, virtues, worship, scrupulousness, humility, generosity and character. It also preserves material demonstrating his intelligence and firasah, his knowledge of Arabic, genealogy, history and medicine, and his explanations of uncommon words and expressions.

The book is particularly valuable for the considerable body of al-Shāfiʿī’s own statements and scholarly opinions that it preserves. Alongside biographical material are discussions of ḥadīth and fiqh, including his views on purification, prayer, fasting, pilgrimage, zakāh, commercial transactions, marriage and divorce, foods, hunting, inheritance, legal judgments and numerous other subjects. It also records material transmitted from him by major early scholars, including Imām Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal.

As a work composed little more than a century after al-Shāfiʿī’s death by one of the great authorities of early ḥadīth criticism, Ādāb al-Shāfiʿī wa Manāqibuh is an especially valuable early source for the study of al-Shāfiʿī’s biography, character, intellectual accomplishments and legal thought, offering the reader a multifaceted picture of one of Islam’s greatest jurists.