Early Islamic Legal Theory: The Risala of Muhammad ibn Idris al-Shafi'i

The Risala of al-Shafi'i (d. 204/820), the earliest preserved work of Islamic legal theory, has been understood in previous scholarship as either the elaboration of a hierarchy of sources of law (Qur'an, Sunna, consensus, and analogical reasoning) or an extended defense of the Sunna. Through a careful rereading of this celebrated text, this book offers a comprehensive reinterpretation of the Risala, in which Shafi'i formulated an all-encompassing hermeneutic that portrays the law as a tightly interlocking structure organized around defined interactions of the Qur'an and the Sunna. Topics covered include Shafi'i’s creative account of the law’s architectonics, hermeneutical techniques, legal epistemology, relationship to kalam, and the role of consensus (ijma’).