Imam al-Shafii محمد بن إدريس الشافعي

Imam Abu Abdillah Muhammad ibn Idris al-Shafi'i rahimahullah (150-204 AH / 767-820 CE) was one of the four great Imams of Sunni jurisprudence and the eponymous founder of the Shafi'i school of fiqh, which is followed today across Indonesia, Malaysia, Egypt, Somalia, Yemen, Sri Lanka, and southern India, among other regions. Born in Gaza, he was of Qurayshi descent and memorized the Qur'an at a young age. He traveled to Madina to study under Imam Malik ibn Anas, memorizing al-Muwatta', and subsequently studied with scholars of the Iraqi legal tradition in Baghdad. He is credited with founding the discipline of usul al-fiqh (the principles of Islamic jurisprudence) through his seminal work al-Risala, which established a systematic methodology for deriving legal rulings from the Qur'an, the Sunna, scholarly consensus (ijma'), and analogical reasoning (qiyas). He later settled in Egypt, where he taught and revised his legal positions. He passed away in Cairo in 204 AH.