The Diwan of Al-Shafi'i

Collection, verification, and study of Dr. Mujahid Mustafa Bahjat Imam Al-Shafi'i is a great scholar, filled the world, and his mention was widespread, and Muslims everywhere spoke his name, and millions of people followed his madhhab. 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 closer to the Islamic nation the fundamentals of religion, organizing its principles and rulings. It was not among Al-Shafi'i's aims to be a poet soaring with his imagination or driven by his desires, praising when pleased, or cursing when angry. Nevertheless, much poetry has been attributed to him, as has been attributed to the Rightly Guided Caliphs and other companions and scholars of the nation before him. If we consider that composing such poetry was the practice of every scholar or jurist in Al-Shafi'i's time, and that everyone who followed his madhhab or studied under him was called "Al-Shafi'i," then we realize how difficult it is to verify the authenticity of what is attributed to him. We have come to know that some of what we will read in his diwan (collection of poetry) may be correctly attributed to him, and some may belong to other scholars. Nevertheless, several institutions and organizations have worked on verifying and publishing his diwan. Notably, different editions of the diwan vary in the amount of poetry they contain, differ in the arrangement and classification of the poems, and vary in the accuracy of the verses or excerpts attributed to the Imam. The book before us is from the diwan of Imam Al-Shafi'i, part of efforts and attempts to extract the essence of our Arab heritage and its precious treasures in new, accessible forms that attract readers, suit their tastes, and satisfy their understanding both aesthetically and literarily. Thus, this book gathers the diwan of Imam Al-Shafi'i, arranged alphabetically and according to grammatical cases, with his verses and excerpts scattered across various sources—literary, linguistic, and historical. This poetry represents an ideal model of the poetic expression of an Islamic jurist.