?–820 CE · Jurist; founder of the Shafi'i legal school
Muhammad ibn Idris al-Shafi'i
Al-Shafi'i (d. 204 AH / 820 CE) already rebuts, in al-Risala, interlocutors who accepted Qur'anic authority alone — evidence that rejection of Hadith as an independently binding source of authority is not a solely modern position. His ranked source-hierarchy did not immediately end regional legal variation, but it supplied the methodological template the later, fully crystallized Sunni legal schools would each adapt.
Content referencing this person
- Research Paper
Islam: History, Authority and the Development of Islamic Tradition
A historical-critical review of the Qur'an and Hadith as sources of religious authority in Islam, distinguishing established fact, scholarly consensus, majority and minority opinion, disputed claims, and theological interpretation at every step.
- Research Paper
Women in Mainstream Islam: Protection, Restriction, and the Historical Development of Religious Practice
A historical-critical review testing whether practices commonly described as Islamic requirements for women — segregation, face-veiling, travel guardianship, exclusion from mosques and public office — rest on the Qur'an itself or on later hadith, jurisprudence, dynastic custom, and regional practice.
- Article
Can Hadith Explain the Qur'an?
A verse-by-verse, source-by-source investigation into whether the Qur'an itself assigns the Prophet an explanatory role beyond the recited text, and what the historical record shows about when the classical doctrine of Sunna's authority actually took shape. Reader's Edition: written for anyone, with every technical term and named scholar introduced as it appears.
- Article
Islam: A Reader's Guide to the Qur'an, Hadith and Early Islamic History
A plain-language companion to Revert Way's academic review of the Qur'an and Hadith: the same evidence, sources, and arguments, with every technical term and historical figure introduced on first use.