be ——=£_—_—_—_—_— Book Review Dr. Naamane Djeghim. Madkhal iki al-Madhhab al- Shai: Rijalubu wa Kutubuhu wa Mustalahdtubu. Kuala Lumpur: UM Research Management Centre, 2007. 316pp. ISBN 978-983-3855-19-3, By: Asst. Prof. Dr. Syamsuddin Arif, Department of General Studies, KIRKHS, ITUM esearch on the Shafi legal school is scarce and R: I in its infancy, particularly when viewed thin its historical and doctrinal setting, In this context, and given the fact that the Shafi'T madhhab continues to be practiced in Southern Arabia, Lower Egypt and parts of Syria, Palestine, Eastern Africa, India as well as Southeast Asia, what Dr. Djeghim has come up with is a welcome contribution. ‘The book under review is divided into four sections. Section one traces the origins and development of the school from its beginning up to the modern times. The section opens with a biographical sketch of Imam al-Shafi'T (@. 204 AH/819 CE), the school’s founder, followed by biographical notes of his disciples and later prominent figures. The author classifies Shafi‘ite scholars chronologically into three generations (tabagat), corresponding to the school’s three stages of development: the early period (200-400 AH), the formative period (400- 700 AH), and the mature period (700-1300 AH), The early stage was represented by the celebrated Imam and the transmitters (ruwd) of his legacy such as al-Muzani, al-Rabi', and al-Buwayti, whereas the formative period was characterized by the emergence of new independent thinkers (mujtahid) such as Tbn Surayj, al-Qaffal al-Shashi, al-Mawardi, and the rise of those who refined the madhhab (muharrir) like Abu Isbiq al- Shirazi, al-Juwayni, and the celebrated Imam al-Ghazali. tis somewhat surprising that the author excludes the names of the great Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (d. 606 AH/1210 CE) and al-Amidr (4, 631 AH/1233 CE), who wrote the influential kitab al-Mahsal and al-lhkam respectively, whilst he includes al-Rafi'l and al-NawawT in the list. Finally, the mature period of the Shafi‘T school saw a concerted effort by subsequent scholars like al-Asnawi, Zakariyya al-Ansari, al-Qalydbt, and al-Bajri to sift through and consolidate the vast resources of the school's, tradition. The second section of the book enumerates the canonical works produced by the leading Shafitites in each period. It is unfortunate that the reader is left _ wondering at this point whether the monographs mentioned are still extant or extinct, and if they have survived the vicissitudes of time, whether they are already printed or still in the form of manuscripts (in which case one might wish also to know their whereabouts).No such important information is furnished. It is in the third section that the book’s particular merit fies, where a laborious glossary containing over 1000 terms arranged alphabetically and often generously translated into English (pp. 151-303), as well as a list of abbreviations and phrases (pp. 123-147) commonly used by Shafiite scholars, ae nicely presented. One is thankful to the author for bringing home the technical meanings of “rugba” (conditional bequeathal) and “shuf‘ah” (preemptive right), or the difference between the ‘Iraqi method (larfgah) and the Khurdsani one-to cite but a few instances which a newcomer to the field would otherwise find cryptic and perplexing. Its promising subtitle notwithstanding, the book sheds littl light on the history of Shafi‘ite school, since no attempt has been made to dig from hitherto unpublished sources, Leaving aside the works done by orientalists such as F. Wiistenfeld’s Der Imam el-Schafi'ti: Seine Schiller und Anhinger bis zum J. 300 (1890) and Heinz Halm’s Die Ausbreitung der Safi'itischen Recktsschule von den Anfangen bis zum 8/14. Jahrhundert (1974), the author could have referred to Carl Brockelmann’s Geschichte der arabischen Litteratur (vol. 1, pp. 188-92 and 482- 502) and Fuat Sezgin’s Geschichte der arabischen ‘Schifitums, which is now available in Arabic (repr. Riyadh, 1991, vol. 1/3, pp. 179-213), The book would have been more useful if it had more relevant footnotes. Indeed, without explicit references to the place(s) where those terms and expressions are to be encountered, the glossary risks becoming meaningless. Also, to give all the dates AH. without the corresponding period in A.D./CE is another drawback. Readers may find it somewhat amusing to learn from the glossary the meaning of such terms as al-istihdad, ‘al-idhyawt, al-garn, etc. ‘There are a few typographical errors, e.g. takbirat al- irdm, talbiyyah, mals}tyr. Yet, taken as a whole, and given the paucity of scholarly research on the subject, Dr. Djeghim’s piece is a work which no one interested in the depth and tricacies of the Shafi‘ite figh can afford to miss. Along with al-Nawaw?’s Tafrir Alfaz al-Tanbth and Abu Jib's al-Mu'jam al-Fighi, it should be an authoritative source for many years to come. ———qj]|\NK——orscererc”tm ~ Scanned with CamScanner