Abstract:

During Abbasid State and Great Seljukian State and dynasties connected to them, important events, leaving profound traces in Islamic culture and civilization, happened. In these periods when scholarly activities lived their golden age, especially jurisprudential dynamism gained a powerful momentum. Particularly in the Shāfi'ī madhhab, two schools as Tarīqat al-Irāqiyyīn and Tarīqat al-Khorassaniyyīn appeared due to the faqihs’ different deductions (istidlal), revealing the meanings (istinbat), inferences (takhrij) and preferences although they were the same fundamentally. These schools coincided with the period of transmission/stability in the fourth and fifth centuries after the hijrah. The three “Qaffāls” called Muhammad b. Ali, Abdullah b. Ahmad and Muhammad b. Ahmad stood out as important representatives of each school. The fact that these jurists, who played a major role in the rise of Shāfiʿīsm to the position of the second largest sect in the regions dominated by the Hanafī madhhab, were referred to by the same titles and epithets such as "Abū Bakr" and "al-Kaffāl", which means "lock-keeper", caused confusion. Therefore, this study was carried out in order to draw attention to the current situation and to contribute to the subject. As a result, it was understood that the three Qaffāls had significant contributions to the stability and development of Shāfiʿī madhhab, development of Shafiī madhab.

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