Tabaqat al-Shafiiyya li-Ibn Qadi Shahba
- Author died
- 851 AH
- Editions
- ‘Ālam al-Kutub
Tabaqat al-Shafi'iyya (The Biographical Layers of the Shafi'is) is a biographical dictionary of jurists of the Shafi'i school of law composed by the Damascene historian and jurist Taqi al-Din Ibn Qadi Shuhba (779–851 AH / 1377–1448 CE) .
Purpose and Structure
Ibn Qadi Shuhba opens the work with praise of God for elevating the status of scholars and placing them like stars in the sky, and he focuses on figures whose fame was widespread and whom students of the law needed to know .
The work is organized chronologically into twenty-nine generations (tabaqat), setting each generation at an interval of approximately twenty years . It commences with the first generation of jurists who studied directly under al-Shafi'i, opening with the entry of Abu Thawr Ibrahim ibn Khalid al-Kalbi .
Continuations and Editions
A continuation (dhayl) to the work was authored by the Damascene scholar al-Sharif Izz al-Din Hamza ibn Ahmad al-Husayni al-Shafi'i (d. 874 AH) .
The book has been published in several modern editions:
- An edition edited by al-Hafiz Abdul Alim Khan, first published in Hyderabad by Da'irat al-Ma'arif al-Uthmaniyya in 1398 AH / 1978 CE in five volumes (four text volumes and an index volume), and later reprinted in Beirut by Alam al-Kutub (1407 AH / 1987 CE) .
- An edition edited by Ali Muhammad Umar, published by Maktabat al-Thaqafa al-Diniyya in Cairo .
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