The Diwan of Al-Shafi'i

Imam Al-Shafi'i is a great scholar, who filled the world, and his mention was circulated among travelers, and Muslims everywhere were accustomed to his name. Millions of people followed his school of thought. How could it be otherwise when he is one of the four prominent Imams of Ahl al-Sunnah, who followed the guidance of the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of His Prophet (peace be upon him), explaining, facilitating, and bringing the fundamentals of religion closer to the Islamic nation, and organizing its rules and rulings. It was not among Al-Shafi'i's goals to be a poet soaring with his imagination or driven by his desires, praising when pleased and insulting when angry. Nevertheless, many poems have been attributed to him, as have those of the Rightly Guided Caliphs and other companions and scholars of the nation before him. If we consider that composing such poetry was the usual practice of every scholar or jurist in Al-Shafi'i's time, and that everyone who followed his school of thought or studied under him was called “Al-Shafi’i,” and that much of what was attributed to the Imam in poetry was said after they mentioned: “Al-Shafi’i,” then we realize how difficult it is to verify the authenticity of what is attributed to him. We understand that some of what we will read in his collection may be correctly attributed to him, and some may belong to other scholars. Nevertheless, we have a collection of poetry attributed to Al-Shafi’i, which several roles and institutions have worked to verify and publish. Notably, different editions of the collection vary in the amount of poetry they contain, and they differ in the classification, arrangement, and explanation of the poems, as well as in the accuracy of the verses or fragments attributed to the Imam. The book in our hands, which is part of the Imam Al-Shafi’i collection, is among the efforts and attempts to present the essence of our Arab heritage and its precious treasures in new, accessible forms that attract readers, suit their tastes, and satisfy their aesthetic and literary understanding. Thus, this book compiles the collection of Imam Al-Shafi’i’s poetry, arranged alphabetically and according to grammatical cases, with his verses and fragments scattered across various sources—literary, linguistic, and historical. This poetry represents an ideal model of the poetic expression of an Islamic jurisprudence man.