İslâm hukuk tarihinde doktriner mezheplerin teşekkül sürecinin başladığı bir dönemde hayat süren Şâfiî (ö. 204/820), önde gelen fıkhî çevrelerin başında bulunan Ebû Hanîfe ve Mâlik b. Enes’ten farklılaşan bir kaynak telakkisine sahiptir. Şâfiî, rivayetler etrafındaki uğraşıların yoğunlaşmasına paralel olarak haber-i vâhidin delil değerinin arttığı bu dönemde, diğer çevrelerin bölgesel hukuk geçmişi ve genel hukuk ilkeleri çerçevesindeki bazı kabullerine karşı çıkmış ve bu kabullerden ötürü kimi zaman rivayetleri terketmelerini yanlış bulmuştur. Onun nesihle ilgili görüşleri ve yaklaşımları, bu rivayetlerin delil değerini ispat için harcadığı yoğun mesainin önemli bir başlığını teşkil eder. Şâfiî’nin geliştirdiği nesih anlayışının en bariz tarafı, Kur’an ve Sünnet arasında yürütülen çapraz nesih ilişkisine karşı çıkması ve hükümlerde nesih kabilinden yaşanan değişimleri kaynakların kendi içinde yürüyen bir süreç olarak tasarlamasıdır. Şâfiî’nin Sünnet’in hücciyeti ile ilgili tartışmalar bağlamında önem arzeden yaklaşımı, belli bir müddet sonra mezhebini benimseyen fakihlerin sorgulamasıyla karşılaşmış ve giderek terkedilmiştir. Bu makalede, ilk olarak Şâfiî’nin nesih teorisi kaynak telakkisini dayandırdığı esaslar bağlamında ele alınacak, ardından Şâfiî âlimlerin değerlendirmeleri ışığında mezhep içerisinde nasıl yorumlandığı üzerinde durulacaktır. Makale, Şâfiî ve Şâfiîlik üzerinden bir müçtehidin ve mezhebin usulî tavrının ve kimi usul meselelerine yaklaşımlarının bağlam içinde kazandıkları anlamı ve bağlamın değişmesiyle görüşlerin de değişebildiğini; mütekellimîn usul yazımında fürûdaki mensubiyetlerin bir noktadan sonra belirginliğini yitirdiğini ve usulî ayrışmaların mezhep mensubiyetiyle birebir örtüşmediğini göstermeyi hedeflemektedir.

Personal schools of legal thought began to form towards the end of first Islamic century and varied in respect to the circle, teacher, and methodology. The transformation of these personal schools into doctrinal schools by the middle of the second century was an important turning point in Islamic legal history. The studies of Mālik (d. 179/795) and his followers as the dominant jurisprudential thought in the Hijaz and the studies of Abū Ḥanīfa (d. 150/767) and his followers as the dominant jurisprudential thought in Iraq turned into the Mālikī and Ḥanafī schools of thought. Testifying personally to this process, al-Shāfiʿī (d. 204/820) developed a particular approach to sources distinct from the two prevalent schools of Malikism and Hanafism. This approach raised the authority of oral reports, transmitting both the Prophet’s tradition and the earliest Islamic experience, and intended to define jurisprudential reasoning (ijtihād). Al-Shāfiʿī explained these two points in his famous work, al-Risāla, by identifying ḥadīth with sunna and identifying ijtihād with qiyās (analogy). Therefore, in parallel to concentrating on studies of transmission, he both tried to assign a theoretical component to the approach of the people of the tradition (ahl al-ḥadīth) by raising the legal value of individual transmissions and also stood against the legal background of other opponent circles. Ancient schools defended their ideas in the context of general legal principles as well as by accepting certain important assumptions. Al-Shāfiʿī especially struggled against the Mālikī approach of excluding many reports by relying on the Medina experience; and he challenged the Ḥanafī school by focusing on its regional legal background as well as its general legal theory of analogy and juristic preference (istiḥsān). Al-Shāfiʿī’s treatment of abrogation and particularly his approach to cross-source abrogation constituted a significant part of his endeavor to raise the legal value of ḥadīth. The question of abrogation that had been debated for the first two centuries of Islamic history took on a new dimension due to al-Shāfiʿī’s aforementioned theory of source. The most salient aspect of his idea of abrogation was his opposition to cross-source abrogation between the Quran and sunna. In accordance with his theory of source and interpretation that he developed through the concept of statement (bayān), Al-Shāfiʿī sought to assign a space to abrogation that would not belie the principles of this theory and devised the changes as examples of abrogation as an intra-source process. Finding cross-source abrogations unacceptable for his theory, al-Shāfiʿī considered the abrogation of prophetic traditions by the Quran as a great threat to the reliability of ḥadīths and viewed the abrogation of Quran by prophetic traditions as an inverted process of statements. Al-Shāfiʿī, who tried to apply this theory to the most widely known issues, had difficulty in explaining certain points despite his great effort and seemed to include prophetic traditions to an abrogation by Quran. Although al-Shāfiʿī’s theory of intra-source abrogation was adopted by his first students and jurists known as “People of Egypt,” such as al-Buwayṭī (d. 231/846) and al-Muzanī (d. 264/878), it was challenged by certain scholars among the second generation Shāfiʿīs. Some scholars from this generation—whose affiliation to Shāfiʿism was dubious and who deserve to be called among the people of tradition, such as Muḥammad b. Naṣr al-Marwazī (d. 294/906) and Ibn Khuzayma (d. 311/924), as well as al-Ṭabarī (d. 310/923), who turned into an independent jurist—adopted cross-source abrogation. Ibn Surayj (d. 306/918), who was a central figure in the formative period of the school due to his jurisprudential efforts, students, and works, seemed to adopt al-Shāfiʿī’s theory of intra-source abrogation but added a new dimension to the debate by differentiating rational possibility, religious possibility, and actual occurrence, thereby paving the way for new interpretations within the school. Ibn Surayj’s students sought possibilities of transforming the theory of abrogation without contradicting al-Shāfiʿī’s theory of statement; after a certain date, their followers found an appropriate venue for abandoning the theory by ascribing multiple views to al-Shāfiʿī. Some Shāfiʿī scholars in the fourth/tenth century confessed to the difficulty of defending al-Shāfiʿī on this point and openly expressed the necessity of abrogation of the prophetic tradition by the Quran by disregarding far-fetched interpretations.   Al-Juwaynī (d. 478/1085) and al-Ghazzālī (d. 505/1111), as scholars of theological theory, abandoned al-Shāfiʿī’s theory of intra-source abrogation, especially by relying on al-Bāqillānī (d. 403/1013). These theologians—who developed a new approach to statement as the main concept for the approach to sources and interpretations and showed that cross-source abrogation did not belie the concept of statement—used al-Shāfiʿī’s conclusions based on Quranic verses and turned these verses into evidence for the opposing views, redesigned the Quran-Sunna relations based on the holistic view of revelation, and sought to show that al-Shāfiʿī’s concern for the threat posed by cross-source abrogation for the prophetic tradition was unfounded. Al-Ghazzālī also adopts Al-Juwaynī’s challenges, which were partially based on al-Bāqillānī’s views. As for Fakhr al-dīn al-Rāzī (d. 606/1210), cross-source abrogation evolved into prevalent views among theologian Shāfiʿī theoreticians and commentators of al-Rāzī’s works also adopted this position. Besides, Shirāzī (d. 476/1083) and Sam‘ānī (d. 489/1096), who had a distant position in respect to Ashʿarī theology, could not abandon intra-source abrogation completely but continued defending their leaders in respect to abrogation of Quran by prophetic traditions.     This paper examines first al-Shāfiʿī’s theory of intra-source abrogation in the legal context of the second/eighth century and investigates the background for his opposition to cross-source abrogation. It then traces how this theory of abrogation was received and treated, what kinds of challenges it faced, and how it was abandoned. To do so, it tries to identify the arguments of various scholars involved in this debate and highlight their novel contributions. Taking al-Shāfiʿī and Shafiism as example, the paper aims at demonstrating that the contextual meaning of a jurist’s and a school’s position and their approaches to some theoretical issues may change when the context differs. In addition, it tries to show that the jurisprudential affiliation may lose its importance in theoretical theological debates and theoretical disagreements may not align with school affiliations.