Anas; and Qutaybah ibn Saʿīd (1), who said, “He is an imām [of the Sunnah] (2)”; and Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah; and Yaḥyā ibn Saʿīd al-Qaṭṭān, who used to supplicate for him in his prayer; and Abū ʿUbayd (3), who declared, “I have never seen anyone more eloquent, more intelligent, or more scrupulous than al-Shāfiʿī”; and Yaḥyā ibn Aktham the judge; and Isḥāq ibn Rāhawayh; and Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan, together with many others whose names and statements would take too long to recount (4).
Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal prayed for him in his ṣalāh for nearly forty years, and he used to cite the ḥadīth transmitted by Abū Dāwūd (5) through the chain of ʿAbd Allāh ibn Wahb, from Saʿīd ibn Abī Ayyūb, from Sharāḥīl ibn Yazīd, from Abū ʿAlqamah, from Abū Hurayrah, from the Prophet ﷺ:
“Indeed, Allah will raise up for this ummah at the head of every hundred years someone who will renew for it the affair of its religion” (6).
Aḥmad would then say, “ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz was at the head of the first hundred, and al-Shāfiʿī at the head of the second.”
Abū Dāwūd al-Ṭayālisī (7) reported: “Jaʿfar ibn Sulaymān narrated to us, from al-Naḍr ibn Maʿbad (8) al-Kindī—or al-ʿAbdī— from al-Jārūd (9), from Abū l-Aḥwaṣ, from ʿAbd Allāh, who said that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ declared:
‘Do not revile Quraysh, for one of its scholars will fill the earth with knowledge. O Allah, You made its earliest part taste punishment—or affliction—so let its latter part taste favor.’
This isnād is gharīb through this route (10).
(1) Qutayba ibn Said ibn Jamil al-Thaqafi, known as Abu Raja’ al-Baghlani, master of tajwid and leading muhaddith (hadith scholar), reliable; died in 240 AH. Siyar A‘lam al-Nubala’ (11:13–24).
(2) An addition found in the manuscripts designated Za‘ and Ba‘.
(3) Abu Ubayd al-Qasim ibn Millam al-Harawi, one of the foremost authorities on Arabic language, jurisprudence, hadith, Quran studies, and other disciplines; died in 224 AH.
(4) Numerous authors have written on Imam al-Shafi‘i’s merits (manaqib) and biography, for example al-Bayhaqi’s Manaqib al-Shafi‘i, al-Razi’s Manaqib al-Shafi‘i, al-Subki’s Tabaqat al-Shafi‘iyya, Ibn al-Jawzi’s Sifat al-Safwa, and Ibn Hajar al-Asqalani’s Tawali al-Ta’sis bi-Ma‘ali Ibn Idris, among others.
(5) Sunan Abu Dawud (no. 4291) under al-Malahim (Battles), the chapter “What is mentioned regarding the end of the century”; this is a sound (sahih) hadith.
(6) It is also recorded by Ibn ‘Adi in al-Kamil (1:123), al-Hakim (4:522), al-Bayhaqi in al-Marifa (no. 52), and al-Khatib in Tarikh Madinat al-Salam (Bishar ed.) via Said ibn Abu Ayyub; its isnad is classified as hasan, and its meaning is explained in Jami‘ al-Usul (11:320, Bishar).
(7) Musnad al-Tayalisi (no. 310).
(8) This reading appears in all manuscripts as well as in Musnad al-Tayalisi, Hilyat al-Awliya’, Tarikh al-Khatib, Tarikh Dimashq, and Tahdhib al-Kamal; it also appears in al-‘Aqili’s Dhu‘afa’ (4:289), al-Jarh wa-l-Ta‘dil (8, biography no. 2184), and Mizan al-I‘tidal (4, biography no. 9060) under the name “Hamid,” but in any case it is abandoned and should not be upheld (Bishar).
(9) The name appears in all the manuscripts and in several takhrij sources, but it represents an error by some transmitters who omitted “Abi.” The correct name is Abu al-Jarud, i.e. Ziyad ibn al-Mundhir al-Kufi, whom Yahya ibn Mu‘in judged unreliable (see Ibn Hajar, al-Taqrib).
(10) It is also recorded by al-‘Aqili in al-Dhu‘afa’ (4:289), by Abu Nu‘aym in Hilyat al-Awliya’ (vol. 6, p. 259; vol. 9, p. 65), and by al-Khatib al-Baghdadi.