Publisher's Synopsis
This book looks at Ṭabaqat al-fuqaha? al-shafi?iyah by Ibn Qaḍi Shuhbah (d. 851/1448) and how its author attempted to portray the development of the Shafi?i school of law up to his own times.
The volume examines the impact of crises on the formation of the ṭabaqat genre. It demonstrates how ṭabaqat, dedicated to explicating religious authority, were used by authors to sort-out challenges to intellectual orthodoxies. It also examines in detail the Ṭabaqat directly, demonstrating Ibn Qaḍi Shuhbah's depiction of the development of Shafi?i law, the formation of intellectual sub-schools within the madhhab, the causes of legal decline, and curatives for the decline that are to be found in the great Shafi?i Ikhtilaf (divergent opinion) texts: the ?Aziz sharḥ al-wajiz by al-Rafi?i and the Rawḍat al-ṭalibin by al-Nawawi.
