[0:01]Thank you for joining us and um hopefully uh the group will grow and some people might just like to use the recordings. So, just a note on why I'm presenting this today, um, partly it's really because of my experience leading section 3 marking of the HSC. And I suppose this is a building upon uh what students may have done in class to try and give some insight into um, what really elevates a response on what is actually a very, very complex uh topic. So, obviously, um all of the material that is in the slides today will be shared with you, so you don't need to take notes and what not and there are further notes in the notes pages, so you will have all that and hopefully that will be of assistance to you. So, in terms of Shafi, and now of course, my computer is going to play up on me. That'd be right. Sorts of There we go. Um, so just to start us off, a couple of little um, I guess pieces of wisdom from Shafi himself and that point to the character of the man and to certainly to what his school of fake has attempted to do over the centuries. He was obviously a truth seeker about what it means to live an authentic faithful Muslim life according to the will of God. And so his school of jurisprudence, Fig, obviously, as we know, has become one of the most important. ones in Sunni Islam, so It's Sunni jurisprudence, or is Islamic jurisprudence? It's a process by which jurists in particular derive set guidelines, rules and regulations which is obviously the Sharia, as we know in Islam, from the principles of the Koran and the Sunnah of the Prophet. And so it sounds simple when you say it like that, but it obviously it's far more complex as it is in any religious tradition to come up with those nuances. But for Shafi, it was the epitome of the call to be Muslim was to try and do this and the other thing I think that's really important is this concept of the nafs which we'll talk more about later on. But as Shafi says here that the nafs have so much to do with seeking the truth because the nafs, as we know in Islam, all about the ego. And so he was paramount in explaining to his followers and as has happened through the generations that it is not about the individual desire or the individual ego the Naps, it is about the divine will. And so they're very important things to keep in mind and all obviously his school of feet was about discerning truth over falsehood. So for this session, there's some ideas of what we hope we might do, but it really is about understanding what the HSC requires for Shafi, and indeed every significant personal score thought. To understand his role in the development and expression of Islam and especially I want to show you some examples of lived expression. We often talk about the formula of sacred texts, what they teach, and then what does it look like in practice, so I can try and show you some specific examples are largely taken from previous students.
[3:36]Just want to come back to the syllabus because I think, these dot point things can look simple, but they are usually more complicated than they look. And of course when it comes to the HSC and the trial, it's not about the dot points, it's about the outcomes.
[3:55]And these are always higher order things When you start to look at the complexity of relating cause and effects and making the relationships and drawing out implication That's high order stuff, that's really critical thinking at it's best.
[4:14]So it's not about regurgitation that's never going to work at HSC and it's certainly not about simplistic descriptions, so that's something to keep in mind as we go through it for every aspect of Islam. How often do I like to use this graphic here which I think is a great insight for those of us especially who are not Muslim and in the complexity of the world we live in this understanding of Jihad, okay? And so Shafi's insistence on purity of religious expression. And he was a purist in every meaning of that word is testimony to the nonnegotiable aspects of faithful Muslim life. This internal struggle to overcome naths et cetera and there is a great if your teachers watching this or students There's to a very helpful little video that might be useful in understanding this concept further.
[5:10]Just want to take a quick look at just the last four years of HSC. One of the things you're going to notice is there's no verbs these days They're often not there in the paper. And you can guarantee that in a 20 mark question or again in a 7 or 8 mark question in Section 2, it's always always demanding analysis deep deep deep analysis and you can only show it through really.
[5:43]Useful and specific examples. Okay, so I think it's really important. That these questions that the kids are getting at HSC They're not just analyze the impact of a person or describe this or that If you look at it the kids have to examine a stimulus. Often a sacred text reference but not always That is quite deep and requires thinking to unpack and then they have to align an aspect of that to the person or to the whole tradition or to ethics and so forth. So I think really.
[6:21]The best place to conquer studying someone like Sharfi or ethics or practice is by unpacking the questions and practising the questions. One thing I will tell you without a doubt for every aspect of significant people, study schools of thought. It's not a biography and too many people present a biography not just for Shafi, but for any person. An aisle markers are not interested in biography they are interested in answering the question and providing evidence to support an argument. The other thing I often allude to, and I won't belabour it, but is this is 2013, which really was a big impetus along the way to holistic questions. And when kids try to force feed say Shafi into hash or whatever now for Sharfi it is possible, but other people it's not so possible. But what's the glue? What's the glue that holds Islam together? What obviously it's belief in one God As with all the Abrahamic faiths, but what differentiates Islam is this striving in every aspect of life to conquer ones own desire and to live in faithful submission. And how does Shafi help them do that? What is ethics Help them do that How does practice help them do that But I have to say Shafi is one of the few figures that really provide you with evidence across every area of the study for how to live a faithful Muslim life.
[7:50]So, I think one of the especially if you're in a normal Muslims, as probably the majority of students doing this, may well be, um, we don't have necessarily an enormous amount of background, and we need enough to answer our questions succinctly. This is an excellent uh link to a video here from I think it was last year and let the Quran speak is a Canadian uh program which is seeking to not just answer questions for Muslims.
[8:21]Which there are many but also help non Muslims understand the faith better and so it's an excellent little video to it's about 18 minutes to help understand how the Sunni madhabs came to be and what role Shaff is Fig has played in that. So I would encourage you to consider that.
[8:42]So when we look at, see how the spread of Islam and the different branches of Islam obviously we're focusing on the areas there. Now in the notes page of this there is a link to an interactive version of this diagram that will take you to all the figures mentioned and they will help you expand your understanding a little bit further.
[9:07]But I think it just shows you there it's a good visual reminder that Sunni Islam of course is the larger proportion. Of the faith as a whole and Shafi is certainly a significant part of that But he is not the whole and too many students present Shafi or any significant person really if they represent the whole tradition as if they are the only ones that people listen to in the whole tradition. So really for students that are aiming to get up in that band 56 mark range they need to be able to show to the marker. This man is important because. However he is not a driving force for the whole Muslim Uma so that's a really important thing. So I think it's really again significant to know where Shafi in this instance.
[10:02]is predominant in the contemporary world and obviously for us here in Australia it is very significant that Shafi is followed predominantly in Malaysia and Indonesia Some of our closest um neighbors Now, in terms of, if for two unit religion and non religion, this is a really important map because it gives them some pointers would help some to understand for example that the northern part of Africa is predominantly. Muslim where it's the southern part is more likely to be Christian for those sorts of of questions. To know that Indonesia is the largest Muslim population. Which often surprises students when I work with them across schools. So I think the other thing about this map that's important and I think this is a concept kids need to grapple with for every religious tradition. While there is obviously unity of belief in Islam without a doubt there is but one God and Mohammed is the Prophet of God and so on and so forth. However there is diversity of expression. And Shafi has been part of that Diversity of expression as we'll see maybe in a couple of examples. So, helping students to understand in case there is question along those lines to be able to express how can a faith the second largest faith in the world be a unified faith but also have such great diversity and how we sharply part of that from the video of just included a few little quotes here.
[11:40]And I think it's really important because often at HSC Students write about that's how Shafi unified the Hanafi and the Maliki had madhabs and then of course Hambali came later Hambali was a student of Shafi. But to say he unified them is a little bit of a misnomer because as you can see from the map those madhabs still exist very much so in parts of the world to day and have followers who adhere to them as closely as say Indonesia and Malaysia might adhere to mostly to Sharpie, so I think that's really important, but when you look at how Shafi developed he's fake. He did draw from both So from the video it's a very it's one of the easiest explanations I've found He talks about how because in our fears school was offered operating predominantly in Iraq They were removed from the closeness of the Sunnah of the example of the Prophet of people who were there and witnessed Mohammed's words and sayings and actions.
[12:53]Whereas Maliki was in Medina where Prophet Muhammad spent the last years of his life and his practises had been demonstrated people have witnessed it. So the other thing about Hanafi is they were a little perhaps suspicious of when people sit on Mohammed did this or Mohammed said this et cetera. So the two schools were a little bit different there and it's a nice way of looking at it They were different lenses there were differences These schools didn't know about each other at the and Shafi certainly knew about both of these schools very well, so that concept of their different lenses of looking at the same way.
[13:34]So what did Shafee do? He was this purest as I'm sure Hanafi Maliki were in their own settings as well. Trying to be as faithful as possible.
[13:49]To the teachings of the Koran, and so.
[13:54]See what he did was he took the probably what he thought was the best of both, but he obviously as you would have discovered. Became very much a one of the early figures to discern the absolute critical necessity for authenticated hadith in the process of Fig And of course his books So al risalah So I even actually have a copy of Al Risala It's a complex text but um more advanced students can actually get some really good information from it.
[14:35]It it it put together the presentation of the fundamentals of fake And then the other one that students will often talk about, Alum. It's focuses on Shafi's driving point that um any legal as in religious legal rulings have to be based on revelation that is Kadar the divine determination God's wool for creation and humanity over human desire over the nafs. So it was Whereas Al Risala is more about the fundamental Safiq Kitab alum looks at that aspect And of course Hambali did compose 30,000 hadith. Bali is predominant in Saudi, which of course is very legalistic and so forth. So what is here And there's certainly no way I'm going to read these or expect you to read them on screen It's just an all of the examples that are in the presentation that will be available to you there Woods there coulds there cans, they're not They're not definitive, right? But Studies of religion is premised on um research on deep, critical, broad research and so. You know encouraging students to email to ring to discuss or to use contemporary as in this 2021 um video and then integrate that into their responses, that makes such a difference because textbooks and.
[16:16]No it's from 10 years ago I really out of date, so how might that in an exam Obviously you don't need full referencing There's a little example there and it's a description of how. Shafi drew on the two schools that his time, but, it down the bottom it makes the point that he didn't unify them to the point where the three schools became one because both schools still exist and there's some examples in the little response here, for example, Hanafi in Turkey and UAE and Maliki in much of Northern Africa so that might be helpful for some students to see that. I guess the other thing that especially if we are not of the faith, this concept of authentication of her death is a little bit of a mystery.
[17:08]Now this is it looks but in comparison to many examples we could see this seems more straightforward.
[17:20]And this is a chain of authenticating hadith in respect to whether paintings and drawings of living things are permitted. So I guess this is the fine detail that Muslim scholars go into in ensuring their adhering to God's will and, in case you're wondering when you do some research on this, this very differing opinions on it and as in most religious traditions is never going to be one opinion there's always going to be many. So, for example, some Muslims will not have family pictures or any pictures in their homes because of a belief that if there are such pictures hanging the angels won't enter the home. But that's just to give you a students an idea of um, what and just how important and deep and critical this authentication process is so as you may Shafi was acknowledged by his peers. That's a really important point to make as the Mujaddid of the second century of Islam and that of course is the concept in Islam that each 100 years God will send someone to. Revive or renew to ensure that the faith remains authentic so to be honored with that title gives you some indication of how Shafi within his own context.
[19:01]Was honored by others okay and so there's another way of talking about the Malekian Hannah He might have said he drew wisdom from both. Okay and but he's unfortunately unfaulter focused on the importance of the Sunnah I know sometimes students get Sunnah and her death mixed up So the Sunnah of course was the actual Witness all the actual actions words of Muhammad himself witnessed by the companions and those were shared and ultimately recorded in her death.
[19:40]So Muslims will often talk about the Sunnah, but we know the records are held in the hadith which of course are very important and again multiple multiple books for example Bukhari or Al Muslim, two of the most significant hadith gatherings. So say if you're doing Section 2.
[20:03]Okay, how much you write this. So the big thing is in if students are answering this or any other question for Section 2, it's all about facts, right? Every sentence is got to have a fact. So that by the time your marker has read the first sentence they know this kid's got it and you're pretty much just building on that with someone like Shafi. You have to appreciate that not every aisle marker will know about Shafi.
[20:36]Predominantly people who are often not Muslim They will know the person or the school of thought they are teaching in every religious tradition, but they may not know all the others. So no, you're not going to give a biography of Shafi, but give a little snapshot Let them know who he is, where he, you know, where he was. What did he do to find the process of jurisprudence? There's that concept of ensuring purity. And there is that little hint of a sacred text reference now.
[21:09]I often would say to my previous students and the kids I work with now You need some go to texts that if you have one of those blank moments and the best millar is so important because it starts all except one of the chapters of the Koran in the name of the card the most merciful compassionate beneficent and so forth. So authentic submission in the name of God is is a good one for students to remember. And then it just why did he define this process et cetera and then authenticated to death And then there's that little bit of analysis there that about look you get different figures 25 some say 20 some sort of 28% of Sunni Islam follows Shafi EG Indonesia.
[21:55]It's a little sign, so it's full of facts. It's not generalizations and you're encouraged to help students to write that way. So this one and so what I'm trying to do is show through examples of students writing how you can present Shafi without giving a biography of Shafi, so this was a practice essay.
[22:24]And again there's the Bismillah analyze the contribution to um the search for meaning. Now this is not an introductory paragraph and all this is um mentioned in the notes page, so this is I think the second paragraph of, an essay and I think from memory it was about an 8 or 9 paragraph essay because we don't just do five paragraph essays by the time we get to the HC.
[22:52]So the big thing is to help kids work again as I said back at that slide with the past papers to grapple with stimuli and how they don't have to just keep repeating the whole thing, but they take the essence of meaning. So in the name of God et cetera, so that you've got it there. He's delineated Process says he's defined process of process of usual afiq so using the kids really do need for every aspect of Islam but I think especially for Shafi a pretty well defined glossary of terms to elevate their responses.
[23:32]Okay it was so What was it about it was the primacy said the Koran complemented by the tsunami That was where it all was and for Shafi you really did try to find your answers there before you went either to the Ishma or I Chad the Kias the analogy, so. That is an example of how a student didn't introduction gave the marker a little little taste a little teaser of what they would talk about to and then how they explained Shafeek and it has got a little example in there that I think was fleshed out further in this response from memory.
[24:14]So the science remains applicable to different cultural contexts and issues and not identified by the Quran or the Prophet, for example, use of Shafi fiq in contemporary Malaysia's banking system. Lesser elements of Shafi fiq are the Ijma or consensus of the community and Ijtihad, scholarly interpretation and legal decision making exercised through qiyas (deductive analogy). Shafi stipulated the authority of these sources, in hierarchical order, as a means of practice. Shafi continues to assist adherents to find meaning by supporting their submission, as required “in the name of God”, through his insistence on the authenticated chain of transmission of Sunnah recorded in the Hadith. His delineated process of usul al fiqh, and the subsequent school of thought that developed around this, was reliant on the primacy of the Qur’an complemented by the Sunna of the Prophet. In his guide, Shafi drew elements from each school which he believed to reflect the purest intention of Islam, eventuating in the Shafi’i Madhab that is still followed by 25% of Sunni Islam. This response further identifies the centrality of right-intent. We sure did and his respect for application which is obviously what the stimulus is about. So it's obviously made the inference there that it's Sunni Islam it's not the whole of Islam, so that was the introduction.
[26:35]Okay, now. This this student then I've put this in here as an example of how you might, explain the context that Shafi was operating in It's always good to do something I think in at the for all the significant people in their own time frame in an intermediary time frame and in the contemporary time frame. So if you can show that continuum, I think that really does elevate a response. So the student here, um this one is a different way of talking about it served as a link between these schools, synthesizing the fundamentals. So that's a different way of expressing it. Again, it's about how these further complements the Quran and this one introduces the 25% of Sunni I mean, I think it's you can't write about him without getting that in there somewhere. Okay, so that's just another way of doing it.
[27:38]When I just mentioned how it is important and I haven't I put something later on about Gazali, but to. Shafi's impact was ensured because other really significant scholars in the history of Islam joined his his school of of fiq, okay? So Al Nawawi is well known and extremely highly respected. Because and you can see this Cambridge Muslim College, um so as in the famous Cambridge, this was from a series of lectures, I think, that they ran based on Al Nawawi, so that's a contemporary example of how important he is as a Shafi. Al Ghazali, of course, the great um philosopher, theologian, um, has influenced so many aspects of Islam until the current time. And so they were both significant members of the Shafi school who really took Shafi's legacy and without people such as this it may well have been lost, as with any significant person. So something to bear in mind. So, how do you find people often ask me how do you find the ideas to integrate contemporary issues and so forth to elevate an answer beyond generalizations which sadly is what happens at HSC way too often. So, here was a question from um 2020, on the on the site Seekers Guidance. And it was from a, and of course this is when COVID, as you can see from the image, I hope, when COVID raised it's ugly head. And so the issue of beards. Now, as we know, many many Muslim men, most Muslim men, will have a beard and they are often of varying lengths. And this was a real issue not just for Muslims, but for Sikhs, as well, in the especially in the medical field where wearing masks with full beards was quite complex. And I think it's a great example for all students to see the extent to which Muslims really really do try to be faithful to the Quran in every aspect of their life.
[30:16]And he wanted to know. Because he has to take care of patience as a medical student. How will he would manage the fact that he couldn't fit his beard in the mask. Now they did develop other sorts of masks, I think, over time. So. It's a really interesting contemporary dilemma for many. And so the answer was that if you still can't wear. The mask, even after you trimmed your beard very short. You may trim your beard really really short. Or which is optimal. Or that you could actually shave it, which is not really the desired result, but it would be possible to do that because of the greater good.
[31:09]In Islam, the concept that when you save one life you save all of humanity. So. This concept of permissibility, so that was the answer that was given. So how might you always you're right about this. So I think anything that shows the marker, something current, is going to wake them up because when you're reading the same old, same old, every night and all day Saturday for two weeks and a few days, it gets pretty near what? Sometimes hard to stay focused so anything new is always interesting. So introducing this concept of the issue of wearing masks for Muslim men, especially in medical situations, um, posed concerns for them. Did it fulfill the requirements of Sharia And you're always looking for ways to get your terminology in. Now remember the formula of sacred texts and their teachings et cetera So the hadith that this draws on. It'd be different from the polytheist Let your beards grow full and shorten your mustaches. And the implication is of course that full beards and of course still to this day are considered necessary. Now the interesting thing was this that it would appear that it was Sharp's opinion. However as the school developed, trimmed beards were determined to be okay.
[32:41]All right, and All Gazali was one of the people that apparently said that trimming the beard to a certain length was. Okay, now. This is a mean Kids generally know how Ramen halal, but they don't know the other Often though, the other levels of what is ethically appropriate or not. So trimming the beard with mackerel.
[33:06]Disliked, but it wasn't as bad as being haram, so it was possible. So that whole question and then this is how you would give the example. Again, how do you reference this stuff in a question put to Seekers Guidance USA Digital portal in April, okay? Requesting acceptable fake This guy was actually looking for a decision on this stuff Okay, and then so you've got the shake there who gave the um response There was leeway.
[33:42]And he actually quotes the Shafi school. Um it's not they don't deem shaving sinful, but only disliked. So I think um the other thing here and it's a really good reminder to us when we're working with students and trying to understand Islam it's so much of it is about right intention. If the intention is pure, then necessity can override something that would in other ways not be permissible. So this guy was obviously this young man seeking guidance was obviously had right intention. He was trying to be a good doctor in training and a really good Muslim at the same time because he wanted to care for his patients. So I think that's quite a nice example actually. Just want to come back to this question that will put up before.
[34:37]Shafi is a really, interesting figure to study because of his impact across every aspect of the tradition, okay? So whether you're whether it's ethics and especially bioethics or any of the ethics, really, sexual ethics, doesn't matter what area you're studying and practice because obviously the practice to him was a critical area of study.
[35:07]You can find links to everything. One and I think in a response it's perfectly if you're doing a bioethics response, for example. It's perfectly legitimate that actually it's excellent to say Shaffy Muslim Sunni jurist Imam Al Shafi stated in respect to contraception XYZ. Okay, that's fabulous. As long as they don't make a bioethics or a other ethics or a harsh essay all about Shafi. But honestly look for examples We're always trying to minimize the content these poor kids have to get stuck in their heads and maximize the application. And if you are studying Shafi you have got so many opportunities to do that. So, for example, let's have a look at one example. So if you're doing Friday prayer. So the Quran makes it very clear. When the call is made hasten to the remembrance of Allah Yeah, stop work, right? And as we know that can be very hard thing to do when you're not working living in a Muslim country. So Friday prayer at the mosque is a critical aspect of Muslims. Being able to express their faith.
[36:30]So. What's that got to do with Shafi. So these are so this is another COVID issue and it was just as prevalent here in Australia, but this is a really interesting um, case old not case study a paper that was um published from the law school at Lancaster University in the UK about, opening should mosques close during COVID, right now?
[37:04]Obviously in the end, though, the mosques did close and most were in support of it. This, um, the paper makes numerous references actually to Shafi in discerning what the correct answer might be. And interestingly enough, in looking at their bibliography, they have a link to seekers guidance, which is uh I think a fairly well known international site. And so it also had a Shafi perspective on Friday prayer and congregational prayer. So things like that I think are excellent. For students to be looking at, and that's where you can draw on material that you can adapt across both your study of Shafi and if you're doing Friday parade the mosque. So, and obviously they're the same quandaries were faced by Muslims in Australia in respect to all these issues, and you can find examples from Muslims in Australia about that.
[38:11]So, look Shafi. In terms of prayer, the Shafi was an absolute absolute purist that, to be faithful you must fulfill the prayers absolutely with scrupulous, scrupulous um authenticity.
[38:31]Uh his rules and respect to Gusau, for example, for cleansing. That sort of thing.
[38:41]Because you could not come before God in an impure state. So he's a really interesting one and and this is where, you know, yes, you can't teach um HSC content in prelim, but you can't teach prelim in a vacuum either. So for example, when you're studying um the pillars in prelim, you can always use as an example introduce Shafi to say, well, this is a significant figure in the history of Islam, and this is what Shafi said about prayer. There's so many sites that would help you do this. From a Shaffat perspective, and there's the issues you can pursue um immeasurable, really.
[39:29]So I had a student who researched Shafi's teaching in respect to menstruation and prayer. And um you know, visiting the mosque and so forth and obviously the majority traditional view is that a woman wouldn't do that, but she also found examples of contemporary, very faithful Muslim women who were starting to challenge those perspectives based on the Koran and the hadith and trying to put a counter argument, which made for very interesting reading.
[40:07]So. You there's there's no limit I guess is what I'm saying because every aspect of life is there.
