What is shafii fiqh? Fiqh during the period of the mujtahid imams in shafii fiqh…
The beginning and end of this era were between the years 120-350 AH / 738-960 CE. It is the era in which legal issues were written down and the greatest mujtahids emerged.
This era is regarded as the golden era of fiqh due to the productivity of the activities in the field of fiqh in this period. It is also called the era of compilation (tadwin), era of Mujtahids, era of the birth of madhahib etc. It was the generation of atba’ut tabi’in who took part in the development of the Islamic law.
Some of The Most Notable Scholars of This Period Are:
In Kufa; Zayd ibn Ali Zain al-abidin ( d. 122/740), Abu Hanifa Nu’man ibn Thabit (d. 150/767), Abu Yusuf (d. 182/798), Muhammad b. al-Hasan ash-Shaybani (d. 189/804), Dawud b. Ali az-Zahiri (d. 270/883);
In Medina Ja’far as-Sadiq (d. 148/765), Malik ibn Anas ( d. 179/ 795);
İn Mecca Ibn Jurayj ( d. 150/767),
In Basra Sufyan al-Thawri (d. 161/778), Sufyan b. Uyayna (d. 198/813);
In Baghdad Tabari (d. 310/922), Abu Thawr (d. 240/854), Ahmad ibn Hanbal (d. 241/855);
In Syria Awzai (d. 157/774);
In Egypt Lays ibn Sa’d (d. 175/791), Muhammad ibn Idris ash-Shafi’i (d. 204/820);
In Khorasan Abdullah b. Mubarak (d. 181/797).
In time, the schools of fiqh began to emerge around certain prominent scholars such as Abu Hanifa, Imam Malik, Shafi’i, Ahmad b. Hanbal and Ja’far al-Sadiq. Legal formations that were initially shaped on the basis of cities gradually spread over a wider geography.
The Noteworthy Characteristics of This Era In Regards To The Science of Fiqh Are:
1- Great Muslim Jurists were raised in this era: The respect and support given by the Abbasid caliphs and government officials to Muslim jurists had a positive effect on the development of this environment.
2- The sciences of fiqh and the methodology of fiqh were compiled. Moreover, the science of fiqh developed into an independent science during this period. It was also in this period that the Sunnah, the second major source of Islamic sciences, was completely compiled (books related to Sunnah were written and compiled in this period.)
3- The Schools of law (madhahib) emerged: All the great schools of Islamic law that we know of today developed during this era.
4- Independent reasoning (ijtihad) was carried out in all subjects of Islamic law: Along with offering solutions to the real cases of life, Muslim jurists presumed and discussed incidents and cases that might happen in the future and thus developed theoretical Islamic law.
Source: Fiqh1 (According To The Shafi’i School Of Islamic Law), Erkam Publications
