Ibrāhīm ibn Muḥammad al-Shāfiʿī said, “I have never seen anyone perform the prayer more perfectly than al-Shāfiʿī. This is because he learned it from Muslim ibn Khālid, Muslim learned it from Ibn Jurayj, Ibn Jurayj from ʿAṭāʾ, ʿAṭāʾ from Ibn al-Zubayr, Ibn al-Zubayr from Abū Bakr al-Ṣiddīq, and Abū Bakr from the Prophet ﷺ.
Al-Shāfiʿī also said, “In Yemen I saw many nine-year-old girls who menstruated regularly.” (1)
Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam related: “I heard al-Shāfiʿī say, ‘They talk about the water of Iraq, yet in the whole world there is nothing for men like the water of Egypt. When I arrived in Egypt I was like a eunuch—nothing in me would stir.’ ”
He added, “He had not yet left Egypt before a child was born to him.” (2)
Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm ibn Jannād reported: al-Ḥasan ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Jarawī narrated to us (3): “I heard al-Shāfiʿī say, ‘In Baghdad I left behind something the heretics have invented; they call it taghbīr (a kind of rhythmic chanting). They use it to distract people from the Qur’an.’ ” (4)
Al-Shāfiʿī said, “No heavy-set man has ever truly succeeded—except Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan.”
"Do not recite the Quran in less than three (nights)." Reported by Abu Dawud (no. 1394) and al-Tirmidhi (no. 2950) from the hadith of Abd Allah ibn Amr; the chain is sound.
(1) Al-Adab al-Shafi‘i, p. 49; Hilyat al-awliya, 9/137.
(2) Manaqib al-Bayhaqi, 2/119.
(3) The attribution is to Jari b. Awf, a branch of the tribe of Judham; see al-Ansab 3/238. Abu Hatim classified him as reliable, and al-Darqutni said: “I have not seen anyone comparable to him in virtue and asceticism.”
(4) Al-Adab al-Shafi‘i, p. 310; Hilyat al-awliya, 9/146; Manaqib al-Bayhaqi, 1/283; Talbis Iblis, p. 230. The isnad of the report is authentic.
Al-Azhari writes in Tahdhib al-lughah 8/122: The melodious chanting of poetry about the remembrance of Allah may be called taghbir; when people recite such verses with tunes they are moved, dance, and jump, so they were labeled al-mughabbirah in this sense. He then quotes al-Shafi‘i’s remark.
Abu Ishaq the grammarian adds: They were called al-mughabbirun because they make people lose interest in the transient world (al-faniyah al-madiyah) and long for the remaining one (al-ghabirah), namely the enduring Hereafter.