Aswhab al-Wujuh: Imam Abu Ya’qub Yusuf ibn Yahya al-Buwayti (r.a.) in Brief

بِسۡمِ ٱللهِ ٱلرَّحۡمَـٰنِ ٱلرَّحِيمِ 

The following is adapted and extracted from “Biographies of Some of the Aswhab al-Wujuh in the Shafi’i Madzhab.”  The Aswhab al-Wujuh are the scholars who developed and transmitted the Shafi’i madzhab from the time of the immediate students of Imam Abu ‘Abdullah Muhammad ibn Idris ash-Shafi’i (r.a.), circa 200 AH, to the time of Imam Abu Hamid Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Ghazali (r.a.), circa 500 AH.  Thereafter there was a pressing need for recension of all this development into a single body of work.  This task was met by Imam Abu al-Qasim ‘Abd al-Karim ibn Muhammad ar-Rafi’i (r.a.) and Imam Abu Zakariya Yahya ibn Sharaf an-Nawawi (r.a.), who became known as the Shaykhayn in the madzhab. 

The first of these Aswhab al-Wujuh was Imam Abu Ya’qub Yusuf ibn Yahya al-Buwayti (r.a.).  He was the successor the Imam ash-Shafi’i (r.a.), and accounted his greatest student.  Those who knew him described him in superlatives and hyperbole: a mountain in knowledge of the religious sciences; a devoted ascetic who spent long hours of the night in prayer and recitation of the Qur’an; never found without the remembrance of Allah (s.w.t.) upon his lips; utterly devoted to the understanding and reflection upon the Qur’an and ahadits.  Such was his standing in the eyes of his peers that Imam Taqi’ ad-Din Abu al-Hasan ‘Ali ibn ‘Abd al-Kafi’ as-Subki (r.a.) considered him to have attained the rank of the swiddiqin, the highest rank after the prophets). 

Imam ash-Shafi’i (r.a.) loved him greatly, saying, “none has more right to my companionship than Yusuf, and none of my companions is more knowledgeable than him.”  Imam ash-Shafi’i (r.a.) would often consult with him in difficult legal issues.  After Imam ash-Shafi’i’s (r.a.) passing he was instrumental in the consolidation and spread of the madzhab. He is sometimes called the first Shafi’i.  He was the first scholar to write a mukhtaswar in fiqh, his Mukhtaswar al-Buwayti, which is much more faithful in abridging Imam ash-Shafi’i’s (r.a.) thought than that of Imam Abu Ibrahim Isma’il ibn Yahya.  Imam al-Buwayti’s (r.a.) name is found frequently in every major book of the madzhab.