JOURNAL OF ARABIC AND ISLAMIC STUDIES

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Felicitas Opwis
Yet, al-ʿAbbādī’s portrayal of the school’s opposition to the
government doctrine of the created Qurʾān and its alignment with the
traditionalist camp is not necessarily all that has been said about the
theological persuasions of the early Shāfiʿī school. Many sources
associate al-Shāfiʿī with prominent Muʿtazilī figures, in particular Bishr
al-Marīsī (d. 218/833). 123 Association, of course, does not mean that al-
Shāfiʿī had to agree with the views of his associate – one may simply see
him as very tolerant in his attitudes. 124 However, it would be more
difficult for al-ʿAbbādī to dismiss any intellectual proximity between
teacher and student. Two of al-Shāfiʿī’s teachers are counted among the
Muʿtazila, namely Ibrāhīm b. Abī Yaḥyā al-Madīnī and Muslim b.
Khālid al-Zanjī. 125 If al-Zanjī’s Muʿtazilī pedigree was known to al-
ʿAbbādī, he does not let on; the latter is acknowledged by al-ʿAbbādī as
al-Shāfiʿī’s teacher without further comment. 126 Ibrāhīm b. Yaḥyā does
not find his way into al-ʿAbbādī’s work. Nor does al-ʿAbbādī give any
indication that some of al-Shāfiʿī’s students held theological views that
were not in line with the doctrine of the uncreated Qurʾān. He manages
to avert any intellectual connection to Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān by reporting
that al-Shāfiʿī himself condemned the legal thought of this student of his;
a fortiori one may extend this also to his theological positions.
Furthermore, al-Shāfiʿī’s student al-Karābīsī, whom al-ʿAbbādī
frequently cites as authority, is remembered for asserting the
pronunciation of the Qurʾān to be created – a view that drew the ire of
the traditionalists. 127 While I do not wish to imply that al-Shāfiʿī had
Muʿtazilī leanings, 128 my point here is that al-ʿAbbādī selects what he
presents of the theological persuasions of the early followers of al-
Shāfiʿī in a manner that fits into his view of the school at his own time,
an account of how the Ḥanafī school and Abū Ḥanīfa was slowly disassociated
from the created Qurʾān doctrine see ibid., 54–60.
123 Hallaq, ‘Was al-Shafii the Master Architect,’ 593.
124 Although the above-mentioned ruling not to pray behind a proponent of free
will would belie such tolerance.
125 Hallaq, ‘Was al-Shafii the Master Architect,’ 593.
126 Al-ʿAbbādī, Kitāb Ṭabaqāt, 84.
127 Melchert, Formation of the Sunni Schools of Law, 71–3.
128 Hallaq makes it quite clear that al-Shāfiʿī belonged neither to the rationalist
nor the traditionalist camp; if at all, he says that it was al-Muzanī who was thought
of as sympathizing with Muʿtazilī teachings (Hallaq, ‘Was al-Shafii the Master
Architect,’ 594).
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