Shafi'i Fiqh

Shafi'i fiqh: how this section is organised

• What you will find here: the primers of the Shafi'i school and their commentaries, in Arabic, in their original editions and all new.
• Four genres: primer, abridgement, commentary, gloss. The genre appears on every listing, since it determines use and level.
• Three levels: beginner, intermediate, advanced, indicated by the length of the text, its density and its vocalisation.
• Classical texts and contemporary manuals: from medieval matn to manuals written for modern teaching.
• What you will not find: translations or bilingual editions. The catalogue is entirely in Arabic.

Where the Shafi'i school comes from and where it is followed

The school goes back to Muhammad ibn Idris al-Shafi'i, who died in 204 AH in Egypt. He left two major works in his own hand: al-Umm, a vast treatise of law, and al-Risala, the first systematic text on the foundations of law, which sets his school apart from the outset.

It is followed today in Egypt, the Levant, Yemen, Kurdistan, East Africa, and throughout Southeast Asia, Indonesia and Malaysia foremost. It is the most widespread school around the Indian Ocean.

The most visible trait of this section is the continuity of its chain of commentary: a single text from the seventh century AH was commented on, then glossed, then abridged again, without interruption into modern times. The result is an exceptionally well marked curriculum, where each level has its appointed text.

The Shafi'i curriculum, text by text

It is probably the madhhab whose progression is most clearly graded, from the shortest to the most technical.

To begin

Safinat al-Naja, a very brief text limited to the basics of worship, vocalised in almost every edition, often a child's first text. Then the matn of Abu Shuja, also known as al-Ghaya wa al-Taqrib, which covers the whole of the law in about a hundred pages.

The intermediate stage

The commentaries on Abu Shuja: Fath al-Qarib by Ibn Qasim al-Ghazzi, the most accessible, and al-Iqna by al-Shirbini, more developed. This is the stage where the reader moves from the memorised text to understanding the cases.

For the advanced level

Minhaj al-Talibin by Imam al-Nawawi, an abridgement of an earlier work, which became the reference of the madhhab. Its two great commentaries carry authority: Tuhfat al-Muhtaj by Ibn Hajar al-Haytami and Nihayat al-Muhtaj by al-Ramli, and the advanced reader learns to compare them.

Umdat al-Salik holds a place of its own: short and complete, it serves as a practical reference manual rather than a curriculum text.

Three buying tips particular to this section

First: on Abu Shuja, buy the text with its commentary rather than alone. The two are almost always published together, and the bare text is of interest only for memorisation.

Second: on the Minhaj, the question is not which text but which commentary. The Tuhfa and the Nihaya differ on precise points, and the choice follows the tradition locally observed.

Third: Southeast Asian editions of certain titles carry annotations particular to that region. They are excellent, but the pagination does not match that of Levantine editions.

The other schools

The catalogue covers the four madhhab: Maliki Fiqh, Hanafi Fiqh and Hanbali Fiqh complete this section, and the general Fiqh section gathers works of comparative fiqh and manuals that belong to no single school.

Buy Shafi'i fiqh books in Arabic from My Maktaba

Every work in this section is in Arabic, in its original edition, and every one is new. For each title, the listing states the publisher, year, number of volumes, format, binding, vocalisation, genre and level. If you do not know where to start, write to us stating your level of Arabic and the texts you have read: we will suggest two or three titles in the order in which to approach them.