How the Qur'an Reveals the Law:
al-Shafi`i's Risala on bayan ('making clear').

Translation by David Vishanoff from Muhammad ibn Idris al-Shafi`i, al-Risala, ed. Ahmad Muhammad Shakir ([Cairo: al-Halabi Press, 1940]; reprinted Beirut: al-Maktaba al-`Ilmiyya, [1990]), 21-25.  Numbers in square brackets indicate paragraphs in Shakir's edition.

[53] al-Shafi`i said:  'Making clear' [bayan, i.e. revelation] is of various types, which are essentially the same but differ in their particulars.  [54] What these similar yet differing types of revelation have in common is that they make things clear to those who are addressed by them, in whose language the Qur'an came down.  For such people they are more or less equivalent [in their clarity], even if some types make things more emphatically clear than others; but for those who do not know the language of the Arabs, they are of differing [degrees of clarity].

[55] al-Shafi`i said:  All the requirements that God (having ordained them beforehand) has made clear to his creatures in his Book can be categorized as follows:

1. [56] That which God has made clear to his creatures by an unambiguous text.  For example:  His summary imposition of the duties of prayer and zakah (tax) and pilgrimage and fasting, and of the prohibition of shameful acts both external and internal; and the unambiguous texts concerning fornication and wine and eating carrion and blood and pork; and his making clear how to perform ablution; and other things that he made clear by an unambiguous text.
2. [57] That which God ordained as duties in his Book, and clarified its performance by the tongue of his Prophet.  For example:  The number of the prayers, and the zakah and its timing, and other duties that he revealed in his Book.
3. [58] That for which the Prophet established a precedent (sunna), without there being a text with a judgment about it from God, yet with God having imposed in his Book that one must obey His Prophet and follow his judgments, so that whoever accepts something from the Prophet has accepted the judgment of God.
4. [59] That which God has required his creatures to discover by diligent inquiry, thus testing their obedience in diligent inquiry just as he tested their obedience in other requirements. 
   • [60] For He says: "We will test you, that We may know who of you is diligent and who is patient, and put to the test what you say" (Q 47:31).  [61] And He has said:  "That God might test what is in your breasts and examine what is in your hearts" (Q 3:154).  [62] And He has said:  "Perhaps your Lord will destroy your enemy and leave you in charge of the land, that He may see how you act" (Q 7:129). 
   • [63] al-Shafi`i said:  Thus God directed them toward the Sacred Mosque as a qibla, and said to His Prophet:  "We see your face turning to the skies.  We will turn you to a qibla that will please you.  Turn your face toward the Sacred Mosque; wherever you may be, turn your faces toward it" (Q 2:144).  [64] And He said:  "Wherever you set out from, turn your face toward the Sacred Mosque; and wherever you may be, turn your faces toward it; that the people may not have any argument against you" (Q2:150). 
   • [65] And if they are out of sight of the Sacred Mosque, God has guided them in that diligent inquiry that he has required of them, by means of those rational faculties which discriminate between things and their opposites and which he has implanted in them, and also by means of those other signs that he has placed [in the world] for them, other than the Sacred Mosque itself, toward which He has commanded them to turn themselves.  [66] He has said:  "It is He Who made the stars by which you might guide yourselves in darkness, on land and sea" (Q 6:97).  And he said:  "And signs, and by the stars they guide themselves" (Q 16:16).  [67] Those 'signs' are mountains, and the night and the day, and winds whose names are known blowing from different directions, and among the celestial bodies are sun and moon and stars whose rising and setting places and positions are known.
   • [68] So by [commanding them] to face the Sacred Mosque He has imposed upon them the duty of inquiring diligently, using those things already described by which he has directed them to [the Sacred Mosque].  So long as they inquire diligently, they do not depart from God's command.  But He has not allowed them, should the Sacred Mosque be out of sight, to pray in whatever direction they wish.  [69] Thus he has informed them of his decree.  He said:  "Do humans think they are left without purpose?" (Q 75:36) -- "without purpose" means without being given commands or prohibitions.  [70] This shows that no one, other than God's Prophet, may state [a legal opinion] without reasoning from the evidence that I have described, either in [determining the qibla] or in [determining the] uprightness [of witnesses] or in [determining] compensation for game [killed unlawfully during the pilgrimage]; he may not state [a legal opinion] based on what he thinks best (istihsan), for that is to invent something without any precedent.  [71] Thus God commanded them to take as witnesses two upright persons.  Uprightness is to act in obedience to God, and they have a way to know what is uprightness and what is not. 
   • [72] All this has been dealt with in its place.  I have written of it in summary fashion, hoping that this will [suffice to] indicate other examples of a similar nature.