CHAPTER 3

SHAFI'I AND LEGAL TRADITIONS

THE main theme of Shāfi‘ī’s discussion with his opponents is the function of the traditions from the Prophet. Shāfi‘ī insists time after time that nothing can override the authority of the Prophet, even if it be attested only by an isolated tradition, and that every well-authenticated tradition going back to the Prophet has precedence over the opinions of his Companions, their Successors, and later authorities. This is a truism for the classical theory of Muhammadan law, but Shāfi‘ī’s continual insistence on this point shows that it could not yet have been so in his time.

Shāfi‘ī, it is true, claims that his opponents agree with his essential thesis: ‘Q.: Is there a sunna of the Prophet, established by a tradition with an uninterrupted chain of transmitters (isnād), to which the scholars in general refuse assent? A.: No; sometimes we find that they disagree among themselves, some accepting it and others not; but we never find a well-authenticated sunna which they are unanimous in contradicting.’¹ But Shāfi‘ī’s introduction of the element of unanimity into the discussion and, even more so, the actual doctrines of the ancient schools of law which provide him with the subject-matter for his sustained polemics, show that his claim of a general agreement is only a clever debating point made by him. With their own legal theory much less developed, and forced by Shāfi‘ī to confront a problem of which they had not been consciously aware, the ancient schools of law had no answer, and Shāfi‘ī made the most of his opportunity. This explains the influence that his doctrine was to have on the legal theory of all schools.

Shāfi‘ī prides himself on having always held this attitude towards traditions from the Prophet, and he declares: ‘I have unwaveringly held, thanks be to Allah, that if something is reliably related from the Prophet, I do not venture to neglect it, whether we have a great or a small opposition of Companions and Successors against us.’² We find, nevertheless, traces of an attitude corresponding to that of the ancient schools in some of