Views[edit]
Apostasy[edit]
Shafi'i madhhab considers apostasy, that is the act of leaving Islam or converting to another religion or becoming an atheist, as one of seven religious crimes.[17][18][19] The school requires a waiting period of three days to allow the Muslim apostate to repent and return to Islam. After the wait, execution is the traditional recommended punishment for both men and women apostates.[19][20]
Shafi'i school, as with other Muslim fiqhs, considers apostasy as a civil liability in addition to it being a criminal offense.[20] Therefore, (a) the property of the apostate is seized and distributed to his or her Muslim relatives; (b) his or her marriage annulled (faskh); (c) any children removed and considered ward of the Islamic state.[20] In case the entire family has left Islam, or there are no surviving Muslim relatives recognized by Sharia, the apostate's property is liquidated by the Islamic state (part of fay, الْÙيء).[21][22] Shafi'i Sunni school of jurisprudence does not consider any wait as mandatory before the Islamic authorities can seize the children and property of the apostate.[21][23]
Blasphemy[edit]
Shafi'i school considers blasphemy as any action, speech or behavior that degrades, insults or questions Allah, Muhammad, beliefs, symbols, holy texts, fatwas and customs common in Islam.[24][citation needed] The school considers blasphemy as a separate offense from apostasy, but accepts the repentance of blasphemers. If the blasphemer does not repent, the punishment is death for both men and women.[25][not specific enough to verify][26]
Stoning[edit]
Shafi'i jurists state that adultery by a married man or woman, or other religiously disallowed sex (homosexuality), must be punished by Rajm (stoning).[27] If the accused is unmarried, the stoning punishment is reduced to public lashing. For evidence, Shafi'i fiqh accepts the following: self-confession, or testimony of four male witnesses (female witness is not acceptable), or contested pregnancy.[28] Unlike Maliki scholars who always considered contested pregnancy in an unmarried woman as "public evidence of zina", some Shafi'i jurists, however, disagreed. They stated that stoning is unwarranted in a divorced but currently unmarried pregnant woman, because the Quran and Hadiths do not reveal pregnancy as acceptable evidence of zina crime, and that a pregnancy may last 4 to 7 years.[29]
Like Hanafi school, Shafi'i Islamic law literature specifies two types of stoning. One, when the punishment is based on bayyina, or concrete evidence such as four male witnesses or pregnancy. In this case the person is bound, a pit dug, the bound person placed and partially buried inside the pit so that he or she may not escape, thereafter the public stoning punishment is executed.[27] A woman sentenced to stoning must be partially buried up to her chest.[30] The first stones are thrown by the Imam or his deputy in all cases, under Shafi'i law, followed by the Muslim community witnessing the stoning punishment.[30] In second type of stoning, when the punishment is based on self-confession, the stoning is to performed without digging a pit or partially burying the person. In this case, after the stoning has started and the person flees, the person is allowed to leave.[27]
Brideprice[edit]
Mahr is the religiously mandatory dower (brideprice) a Muslim man or his family must pay to the bride in order to enter into a legal marriage in Islam. Shafi'i school, unlike other schools of Sunni Islam, does not place any minimum amount requirement on Mahr. Al-Shafi'i, the founder of the school, explained the rational as follows,[31]
The dower is a price (thaman) among prices, so whatever they consent to as a dower that has a value (qima) is permitted, just as whatever a buyer and seller (mutabaian) of anything that has a value [agree to] is permitted.
– Al-Shafi'i[31]
Slavery[edit]
Shafi'i legal scholars, like Maliki jurists, dedicated a significant portion of their legal analysis on slave law.[32] The slave law literature discussed ownership rights over slaves captured in war or purchased in slave markets, the duties of the slaves, punishment of slaves who steal or have illegal sex or commit other crimes, rights of men to force sex on a slave with or without consent, requirements of master's permission and the process by which a slave can legally marry, inheritance of slavery by a slave's children, how masters can will, gift or sell their slaves.[32][33][34]
In their war doctrine, Shafi'i jurists established four valid choices before Muslims, after any successful raid or war against unbelievers, regarding civilian male and female captives taken – execute them, ransom them and demand wealth for their release, exchange them for Muslim prisoners with the unbelievers, and condemn them as your slaves for own use or to sell them.[35] Some Shafi'i jurists suggested that captives may be released without ransom, in some cases, under Islamic law.[36] The legal scholars also developed the doctrine for emancipation of slaves of those who convert to Islam, at the desire of the master, and their consequent rights as free person.[37][38] The resultant Sharia doctrines on slavery remained in use, in parts of the Muslim world, till early 20th century, when they were abolished under global pressure for secular human rights in matters related to slavery.[36]
The Shafi'i school did not consider slavery, including sexual use of slaves, as anything other than a transaction of goods. Al Shafi'i and Abu Hanifa (founder of Hanafi Sunni school) compared sexual use of slave with marriage.[39] In both cases, stated Al-Shafi'i, the essential similarity is that they are both a transaction granting sexual licitness for compensation.[39] Buying a slave girl gives the Muslim man the legal right to have sex with her, with or without consent. The difference between paying for a slave girl and paying for a marriage, under Shafi'i interpretation of law, is that the man has more limited access rights over his wife and his children from the Muslim wife have property inheritance rights.[39] Shafi'i scholars also clarified that while a Muslim man can legally have sex with slave girls he owns, a Muslim woman cannot legally have sex with slave boys she owns and any such sexual activity is zina.[40][41]
Like other Sunni schools of Sharia, in Shafi'i school, a slave must have his or her master's permission to be married. However, Shafi'i school required that the slave must get the permission before marriage, unlike others which allowed the Muslim master to grant permission after-the-marriage.[42]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shafi%27i