until he came to a house that had been furnished with ʾarmani (Armenian woolen fabric)(1). Al-Shāfiʿī stepped inside, then turned to the servant and said, “This is lawful, whereas that (silk) is unlawful; this is finer than that and costs more.” The servant smiled and said nothing(2).
Al-Rabīʿ relates from al-Shāfiʿī:
My soul now yearns for Egypt,
yet between us lie trackless wastes and desert bare.
By Allah, I know not: is it for wealth and ease
that I am being driven there, or am I being driven to my grave?(3)
Al-Maymūnī said: I heard Aḥmad say, “I asked al-Shāfiʿī about analogical reasoning (qiyās), and he replied, ‘Only when necessity demands it.’”(4)
Abū ʿAlī ibn al-Khallāl informed us; Ibn al-Lattī passed it on to us; Abū al-Waqt related to us; Abū Ismāʿīl al-Anṣārī informed us; Muḥammad ibn Mūsā told us; Muḥammad ibn Yaʿqūb said: I heard al-Rabīʿ say, “I heard al-Shāfiʿī say: ‘If you find…’”
(1) The word is an irregular derivative (nisba) from Arminiyya (Armenia), the country where those carpets are woven. Arminiyya is a region of mountains interspersed with high plains in Asia Minor, south of the Caucasus, bounded by the Iranian plateau to the east, Anatolia to the west, and situated between the Caspian Sea and the Euphrates basin.
(2) Adab al-Shafi‘i, 103–104; Hilyat al-Awliya, 9/126–127; Tarikh Ibn ‘Asakir, 15/12/2; Tawalī al-Ta’sīs, 66.
(3) Manaqib of al-Bayhaqi, 2/108; al-Intiqa, 102; Mu‘jam al-Udaba, 17/319–320; Manaqib of al-Razi, 118–119; Uyūn al-Tawarikh, 7/179.
(4) That is, only when no explicit text (nass) exists. This is the method of the four imams, who turn to analogy (qiyas) only in the absence of scriptural evidence. Some apply it to both present and future cases, while others restrict it to cases that have already occurred. Al-Shafi‘i made extensive use of qiyas in his book al-Umm and in his other works.