Al-Shafi'i, born in Gaza in 767 to the Banu Muttalib clan of the Quraysh tribe, was a Muslim scholar, jurist and theologian who founded the Shafi'i school of Sunni Islamic jurisprudence. He is credited as the first to write a systematic book on the principles of Islamic jurisprudence, al-Risala, in which he set out a hierarchy of legal sources: the Quran, hadith, scholarly consensus, and analogical reasoning. Moved to Mecca at age two, he studied under Malik ibn Anas in Medina, served as an Abbasid governor in Yemen, traveled to Baghdad to study Hanafi jurisprudence, and finally settled in Egypt, where his teachings had their greatest impact. He died in Fustat, Egypt, on January 20, 820, and his mausoleum there, built by the Ayyubid sultan al-Kamil in 1212, remains an important site in Cairo.
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