—no ship is safe there.

Then he put a question of fiqh (jurisprudence) to me. I answered it, but he introduced an element that invalidated my reply. I answered again in a different way, and he inserted something else that ruined that answer. Whatever response I gave, he would spoil it.

He then said to me, “This is fiqh, in which the Book, the Sunnah and the statements of the scholars are all involved, yet something like this can creep into it. What, then, of kalām (speculative theology) about the Lord of the worlds, where errors are many?”

So I abandoned kalām and devoted myself to fiqh. (1)

ʿAbd Allāh b. Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal said: I heard Muḥammad b. Dāwūd say, “Throughout al-Shāfiʿī’s entire lifetime it was never recorded that he spoke about any heretical doctrine, nor was he ever associated with it or known for it, even though he detested the people of kalām and innovation.”

ʿAbd Allāh b. Aḥmad b. Ḥanbal also transmitted from his father, who said, “Whenever a report was proven authentic to al-Shāfiʿī, he would follow it. His best trait was that he had no appetite for kalām; his sole concern was fiqh.”

Abū ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Sulamī said: I heard ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Muḥammad b. Ḥāmid al-Sulamī say—I heard Muḥammad b. ʿAqīl b. al-Azhar say:

A man came to al-Muzanī asking him about an issue of kalām. He replied, “I loathe this subject; indeed, I forbid it, just as al-Shāfiʿī forbade it. I heard al-Shāfiʿī say: ‘Mālik was asked about kalām and tawḥīd (monotheism). He said: “It is inconceivable that we should suppose the Prophet ﷺ taught his community how to cleanse themselves after relieving themselves, yet failed to teach them tawḥīd. Tawḥīd is what the Prophet ﷺ said: ‘I have been commanded to fight the people until they say: There is no god but Allah.’ (2) Whatever safeguards blood and property—that is the true essence of tawḥīd.”’”