RULES OF AL BAYAN EVIDENCE, CONTRADICTION, AND THE INTERPRETER IN AL RISALA OF IMAM AL-SHAFI’I

Abstract

This research aims to infer some rules of calrifying the meanings of revelation (Bayan), as presented in (Al-risala) of Al-Shafi’i. Bayan has three pillars, each of which has its own rules: the interpreter (Almobayyen), the target of Al Bayan (Almobayyan), and the evidence of Al Bayan. Some of the rules of Bayan’s evidence are related to indicating the types of accepted evidence of Bayan, others are related to the ways of dealing with them, including ways of texts authentication, understanding, and dealing with what seem to be contradictions between the texts. The scope of this research: indicating the accepted types of evidence, dealing with contradiction cases, and the interpreter, and by following the descriptive and deductive methods, the research concluded six rules, such as: “religious statements must be based on true sources of religious knowledge”, “there is no real contradiction between revealed texts”, Ijtihad is not valid unless its conditions are met”.