I saw the Prophet ﷺ in a dream and asked him about the disagreements. He replied, “As for al-Shāfiʿī, he is from me and returns to me.” Another narration states: “He revived my sunnah.” (1)

Jaʿfar, the nephew of Abū Thawr al-Kalbī, reports from his uncle: ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Mahdī wrote to al-Shāfiʿī while he was still a young man, asking him to compile a book that would set out the meanings of the Qur’an, bring together the criteria for accepting reports, establish the proof of consensus, and explain the abrogating and the abrogated. Al-Shāfiʿī therefore authored for him the book al-Risālah. (2)

Abū Thawr also said: ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Mahdī told me, “I do not perform a single prayer without supplicating for al-Shāfiʿī in it.” (3)

Al-Zaʿfarānī related: Bishr al-Marīsī performed the pilgrimage, and when he returned he said, “In the Hijaz I met a man the like of whom I have never seen, whether in questioning or in answering”—meaning al-Shāfiʿī. Later al-Shāfiʿī arrived among us, the people gathered around him, and they left Bishr. I went to Bishr and said, “The al-Shāfiʿī you used to speak of has arrived.” He replied, “He has changed from what he used to be.” Al-Zaʿfarānī commented, “Bishr’s situation was like that of the Jews concerning ʿAbd Allāh ibn Salām.” (4)