Harmalah said: Al-Shāfiʿī was asked about a man who had a date in his mouth and who declared, “If I eat it my wife is divorced, and if I spit it out my wife is divorced.” Al-Shāfiʿī answered, “Let him eat one half of it and discard the other half.” (1)

Al-Rabīʿ related that Al-Shāfiʿī once told him, “If the jurists who act on their knowledge are not Allah’s friends (awliyāʾ), then Allah has no friend at all.” (2)

He also said, “Seeking knowledge is better than performing supererogatory prayer.” (3)

Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam said, “I have never seen anyone use less water to complete his purification than Al-Shāfiʿī.”

Abū Thawr reported: I heard Al-Shāfiʿī say, “A jurist ought to place dust upon his head in humble submission and gratitude to Allah.”

Al-Aṣamm said: I heard Al-Rabīʿ relate that a man asked Al-Shāfiʿī about someone who killed a gecko—does he have to perform ghusl (a full ritual bath)? Al-Shāfiʿī replied, “That is an old-wives’ fatwa.”

Al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAlī ibn al-Ashʿath al-Miṣrī narrated to us from Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam: “My eyes have never seen the like of Al-Shāfiʿī. When I reached Medina, I found the followers of ʿAbd al-Malik ibn al-Mājishūn extolling their master, saying, ‘Our teacher is the one who defeated Al-Shāfiʿī in debate.’

“I later met ʿAbd al-Malik, asked him about a question, and he answered me. I then asked, ‘What is the proof?’ He replied, ‘Because Mālik said such and such.’ So I said to myself, ‘How far-fetched!’”