The message of Imam Al-Shafi'i

Ar-Risalah

Author's name: Imam Muhammad ibn Idris al-Shafi'i

Investigation and explanation: Ahmed Mohamed Shaker

The book "Al-Risalah" by Imam Al-Shafi'i is the first book written on the principles of Islamic jurisprudence. By writing this book, Al-Shafi'i - may God have mercy on him - intended to establish the guidelines that a jurist or mujtahid should adhere to when explaining the legal rulings for every hadith and innovation in every era. It is one of the books that Al-Rabi' narrated from Al-Shafi'i. The book, Al-Risalah, is in one volume, in which Al-Shafi’i addressed fundamental issues such as the single hadith and the evidence therein, the conditions of the authenticity of the hadith and the integrity of the narrators, the rejection of the mursal and munqati’ reports, and other issues of fundamentals and preference. The long introduction to the letter (one hundred pages) constitutes a large part of its material. Fakhr al-Din al-Razi says about Al-Shafi’i’s leadership in establishing the science of the principles of jurisprudence: “Before Imam Al-Shafi’i, they used to talk about issues of the principles of jurisprudence, and they used to provide evidence and object, but they did not have a general rule to which they could refer in knowing the evidence of the Shari’a, and in how to oppose it and its preferences. So Al-Shafi’i deduced the science of the principles of jurisprudence, and established for people a general rule to which they could refer in knowing the levels of the evidence of the Shari’a. It has been proven that Al-Shafi’i’s relation to the science of the Shari’a is like Aristotle’s relation to the science of reason.”