Al-Risala (al-Shafi'i book)

Contents

1. Introduction
2. On al-Bayān (Perspicuous Declaration)
3. On Legal Knowledge
4. On the Book of God
5. On the Obligation of Man to Accept the Authority of the Prophet
6. On the Abrogation of Divine Legislation
7. On Duties
8. On the Nature of God's Orders of Prohibition and the Prophet's Orders of Prohibition
9. On Traditions
10. On Single-Individual Traditions
11. On Consensus (Ijmā‘)
12. On Analogy (Qiyās)
13. On Personal Reasoning (Ijtihād)
14. On Juristic Preference (Istiḥsān)
15. On Disagreement (Ikhtilaf)

The above list of contents follows Khadduri's translation. However, Khadduri rearranged the treatise in two places. Khadduri's chapters 8 and 3 (in that order) both follow Shafi'i's chapter on Traditions in the original. Khadduri rearranged those chapters because they did "not appear to fit into the logical order of the book." Therefore, if one wishes to read Khadduri's translation while following Shafi'i's original arrangement, one can read the chapters in the following order: 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 8, 3, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15.

Sources of law in ''Al-Risāla''

The primary sources of law attributed to Shafi'is book are the Qur'an and the prophetic tradition. Most Muslim commentators have also referred to Shafi'is sections on consensus and analogical reason as comprising legal sources.

On the question of consensus, Shafi'i obligated affirmation of all living Muslims - both the learned and the laymen - in order to declare a true consensus. Later followers of his school considered this to be practically impossible, and thus expanded upon the definition.

Translations

An English translation of the Risāla by Joseph E. Lowry was published in 2013 by the Library of Arabic Literature, printed alongside an Arabic edition of the text in a facing-page translation, under the title The Epistle on Legal Theory.

References

References

1. ''Islamic Jurisprudence: Shafi'i's Risala'', trans. by [[Majid Khadduri]], Baltimore: [[Johns Hopkins University Press]], 1961, pp. 19-21 (Translator's Introduction).
2. McNeill, William H., and Marilyn Robinson Waldman. ''The Islamic World''. University of Chicago Press, 1973.
3. "Does Shafi'i Have a Theory of 'Four Sources' of Law?, taken from the PhD dissertation of Joseph E. Lowry, ''The Legal-Theoretical Content of the Risala of Muhammad B. Idris al-Shafi'i'', [[University of Pennsylvania]], 1999.
4. Khadduri, p. 53 (Translator's Introduction).
5. Khadduri, Introduction to Shafi'i's Risala, pg. 33
6. Khadduri, pp. 38-39