A useful note: according to al-Shāfiʿī, analogy (qiyās) is employed only when necessity demands it, as several sources cited in the margin of al-Ādāb indicate. In my view, this is the most balanced and cautious position ever taken on analogy.

200 – Abū Thawr and others said: We heard al-Shāfiʿī say:
“No one ever donned speculative theology (kalām) and prospered.”

201 – al-Rabīʿ said: I heard al-Shāfiʿī say:
“Disputation about the religion hardens the heart and breeds resentments.”

176 – I say: Ibn Abī Ḥātim recorded this in al-Ādāb, p.185, and Abū Nuʿaym in al-Ḥilyah, 9/111-112.

202 – Yūnus ibn ʿAbd al-Aʿlā said: I heard al-Shāfiʿī say:
“Allah, exalted be He, possesses names and attributes that no one to whom the proof has come is permitted to reject.” Al-Mukhtaṣar adds: “Whoever opposes them after the proof is established against him is a disbeliever; but before the proof reaches him he is excused on account of ignorance, for such knowledge cannot be attained by reason, reflection, or deliberation. One must affirm these attributes while denying for them any resemblance, just as He denied this of Himself: ‘Nothing is like unto Him, and He is the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing.’ This was transmitted by al-Hakkārī and others, all through trustworthy chains.” Ibn al-Qayyim cited it in full in al-Juyūsh al-Islāmiyyah, p.59, from the narration of ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Ḥātim.

203 – Ibn Abī Ḥātim said: I heard al-Rabīʿ ibn Sulaymān say: I heard al-Shāfiʿī say:
“Whoever swears by one of Allah’s names and then breaks his oath must offer expiation, because the name of Allah is uncreated; whereas whoever swears by the Kaʿbah, or by Ṣafā and Marwah, incurs no expiation, for they are created.”

I say: It has been multiply attested from al-Shāfiʿī that he condemned kalām and its partisans. He adhered strictly to the transmitted reports in both fundamentals and subsidiary matters. He died in Rajab 204 AH in Egypt, a man of fifty-four years.