Imam al-Shafi’i’s Methodology for Establishing the Authority of Solitary Traditions: An Epistemological and Historical Study

Abstract

This article attempts to look into the methodological structure and intellectual context of the modes of argumentation and reasoning employed by Imam Muhammad bin Idris al-Shafi‘i to prove the authority of solitary traditions in the overall system of the Shari‘ah as embodied by its textual sources. The author has followed a method of inter-textual reading that seeks to relate al-Shafi‘i’s arguments and modes of reasoning to the general intellectual debates of his time among the different trends of thought that were interacting and struggling for the epistemological and methodological construction of the Islamic frame of reference, especially in the domain of legislative thought whose essence and form were manifested in the filed of jurisprudence in which al-Shafi‘i contributed a great deal. By this type of analysis the author has aimed at realizing the historical and epistemological significance of the synthesizing intellectual effort made by al-Shafi‘i. The implications of that effort for contemporary Muslim intellectual and cultural life need not be overemphasized, seen the intellectual conflict in Muslim societies in modern times over the creedal and legislative frame of reference in the wake of the great civilizational transformations taking place in the world.