was acutely aware of this and he deliberately engaged the hanafis in debates and discussion on the finer points of their legal thought, and in so doing he successfully mastered the legal thought of both Abu Hanifah and Malik. This was a remarkable achievement for Shafi’i who was now able to analyse, refine and even critique the legal thought of two of the Muslim world’s most influential jurists. And although Shafi’i rightly considered Abu Hanifah to be the father of Islamic legal thought – and considered Malik to be a great authority on hadith – he knew that the science of Islamic jurisprudence had to be systematically developed and codified for the benefit of posterity. Of course, he knew this would not be an easy task, but he was more than qualified to undertake this challenging but important work. His success in this earned him a unique place in the intellectual history of Islam, as the first systematic formulator of the science of Islamic jurisprudence.
In 804 Shafi’i left Baghdad and moved to Syria, and from there he went to Makkah where he began to deliver regular lectures on fiqh and hadith at the haram al-sharif (the Sacred Mosque). Hundreds of students, including the famous Ahmad ibn Hanbal, travelled from across the Muslim world to attend his inspiring talks on all aspects of Islam. Perhaps influenced by the hanafi scholars of Baghdad, Shafi’i changed his views on certain aspects of maliki legal thought during this period, even though he continued to hold Malik (and especially his famous al-Muwatta) in very high regard. After six years of teaching and travelling across Syria and Arabia, Shafi’i returned to Baghdad in 810 only to find al-Ma’mun, the son and successor of Caliph Harun al-Rashid, on the Abbasid throne. Al-Ma’mun immediately asked Shafi’i to become the Chief Justice (qadi al-qudat) of Baghdad but, given his previous bad experience in Najran, the latter politely turned down the offer. Moreover, since al-Ma’mun was a champion of the heretical Mu’tazilite creed, Shafi’i – like the other traditionalist scholars of the time – considered him to be a mischief-maker; but al-Ma’mun took exception to Shafi’i’s snub. Realising the gravity of the situation, he quietly left Baghdad in 814 and proceeded to Egypt.
At the time, Egypt was a very peaceful and intellectually conducive place. Here he came into contact with scores of renowned Islamic scholars and jurists, including Rabi ibn Sulaiman al-Marali and Abu Ibrahim ibn Yahya al-Muzani. He frequently engaged in discussion and debate with these scholars on different aspects of fiqh and hadith, which further polished and refined his own ideas and thoughts on these subjects. Convinced that he had fully grasped the complexities and intricacies of Islamic jurisprudence, he then sat down to formulate a systematic and coherent theory of Islamic legal thought. He took into consideration the views of the hanafis as well as the malikis and in so doing he presented a comprehensive but, equally refreshing, exposition of Islamic legal principles in order to address the new challenges of his time. He recorded his ideas and thoughts in his celebrated Kitab al-Umm (The Book of Essence) and al-Risalah (The Treatise). In these two books, he – for the very first time in Islamic history – systematically formulated the fundamental principles of the science of Islamic jurisprudence. He studied under the guidance of both the hanafi and maliki scholars, but he did not follow them blindly; instead, he developed his own methodology and approach to the scriptural sources of Islam and in the process became the pioneer of usul al-fiqh.
The balanced approach adopted by Shafi’i vis-à-vis the revealed sources of Islam enabled him to emphasise the pre-eminence of hadith while he was in the company of the hanafis, and also highlight the role of human nature and its frailties (in the context of legal theory and practice) when he was with the malikis. In short, by harmonising the legal methodologies of Abu Hanifah and Malik, Shafi’i created a new, comprehensive and original legal synthesis. He was so successful in his task that a Shafi’i madhhab (or school of legal thought) subsequently emerged and spread across the Muslim world. Today, this madhhab is widely followed in Egypt, Yemen, Indonesia, Malaysia, and parts of South America and East Africa. Blessed with a prodigious memory and remarkably sharp intellect, Shafi’i left his indelible mark on the intellectual history of Islam as one of its greatest legal theorists and synthesisers. He died and was buried in al-Fustat, Egypt at the age of fifty-three. Later, in 1211, the Ayyubid ruler Afdal built an impressive mausoleum, which still stands to this day, as a tribute to his memory.
THE ORIGIN OF all the physical sciences can, one way or another, be traced back to mathematics. That is why mathematics is generally considered to be the mother of all these disciplines. In its early days, mathematics manifested itself in mainly three different forms, namely arithmetic (counting with numbers), geometry (measurement of areas), and algebra (calculating by means of symbols and their relationships). These mathematical techniques enabled ancient people to think; to reason and express themselves in a relatively exact and precise way in their daily affairs. Although arithmetic is considered to be the first, and perhaps the most ancient, form of mathematics, very little is known about its origin. According to the historians, archaeological excavations carried out in the Nile Valley and Mesopotamia have shown that counting was familiar to both ancient Egyptians and the Babylonians. The Chinese and Indians also devised their own distinctive ways of counting, just as the Arabs used the position of their fingers to help them count during the time of the Prophet Muhammad. Like the Greeks and the Romans before them, the Arabs also used their alphabets for counting purposes; that is, until the advent of Arabic numerals. Though the zero-based number system was known to the ancient Indians, it was the Muslims who invented the word ‘zero’. Derived from the Arabic sifr, meaning ‘nothing’ or ‘nil’, the Muslim mathematicians developed a rigorous decimal system which subsequently became known as the Arabic numerals. When the Muslim mathematicians were busy conducting complex and sophisticated mathematical equations in their research laboratories in Baghdad, Damascus, Cairo and Merv, the Europeans were struggling to perform simple mathematical calculations using Roman numerals. Trying to conduct a simple mathematical equation using Roman numerals was an uphill job; frankly, it was a hopeless task. By contrast, the introduction of Arabic numerals represented nothing short of a major revolution in mathematical study and research. It helped the early Muslim mathematicians to develop and refine the entire discipline of mathematics for the benefit of humanity. No other mathematician played a more pivotal role in the development of algebra and Arabic numerals than al-Khwarizmi. That is why he is today considered to be one of the greatest mathematicial geniuses of all time.
Abu Abdullah Muhammad ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi was born in Khwarizm, in the Central Asian province of Khurasan. Khurasan at the time was a thriving centre of commerce and literary activities. Under the patronage of its ruling elites, schools and colleges mushroomed across the province; both the religious and scientific subjects were taught and studied by some of the leading Muslim scholars and thinkers of the day. Born into a family where the pursuit of knowledge was valued more than anything else, al-Khwarizmi’s family migrated to the district of Qurtrubulli, located on the outskirts of Baghdad, when he was still a child. Though very little is known about al-Khwarizmi’s early life, it was the custom of the day for young children to attend their local schools and receive basic instruction in Arabic and traditional Islamic sciences, followed by more intensive training in Arabic grammar, literature, poetry and aspects of Islamic theology and philosophy. The students who were considered to be most capable and gifted by their tutors were then encouraged to pursue research in medicine, astronomy, alchemy and mathematics, thereby widening their intellectual horizons. As an unusually talented student, al-Khwarizmi pursued the standard curriculum of the day and soon impressed everyone with his mastery of the religious, philosophical and scientific knowledge of the time.
When al-Khwarizmi’s reputation as an accomplished religious scholar, scientist and mathematician reached the corridors of power in Baghdad, the reigning Abbasid Caliph, Abdullah al-Ma’mun, invited him to join his celebrated bait al-hikmah (The House of Wisdom) in Baghdad around 820; he was around forty at the time. Like his illustrious father, al-Ma’mun became a generous patron and benefactor of philosophical and scientific research; indeed, he promoted learning, research and inquiry into all branches
