Biographical and Jurisprudential Traditions: A Study of the Manāqib Literature on Imam Shafi‘i”

Abstract

This article examines the manāqib (virtues/merits) literature devoted to Imām al-Shāfiʿī (d. 204/820), situating it at the intersection of biography, hagiography, and legal identity formation in classical Islam. Through a close reading of representative texts—especially al-Bayhaqī’s Manāqib al-Shāfiʿī—and triangulation with biographical dictionaries and uṣūl al-fiqh treatises, we show how narratives of piety, learning, and miraculous charisma (karāmāt) were mobilized to authorize legal method, canonize textual authority (the Risāla and al-Umm), and solidify communal boundaries of the Shāfiʿī school. We argue that manāqib writing not only commemorated an exemplary life but also functioned as jurisprudential argument by other means, embedding legal theory inside stories of ethical excellence, isnād prestige, and scholarly debate. The study maps thematic clusters (genealogy of knowledge, ascetic virtues, disputational prowess, and miracle stories), traces their transmission in later ṭabaqāt works, and highlights regional receptions from Khurāsān to the Red Sea littoral