Who was Imam Al Shafii?

Imam Shafii was born in the Gazza in the year 150 AH, the same year that Imam Abu Hanifa died. He was an offspring of the House of the Prophet ﷺ. He laid down the foundations of fiqh in his Risala, which he said he revised and re-read eighty times, then said:

“Only the book of Allah ﷻ is perfect and free from error.”

At the age of two, his mother took him to the Hijaz, where he grew up among her Azdi Yemeni relatives. She then moved him to Makkah later on. He was skillful in archery early on in his life, then he took to learning language and poetry until he devoted himself to fiqh, beginning with hadith. His mother could not afford paper so he would write his lessons on any scrap that could find. The Imam memorised the Quran at the age of 7, and Imam Malik’s Muwatta at the age of ten. He received permission to give fatwa at the age of 15. Imam Shafii went to see Imam Malik in Medina at the age of 13. Imam Shafii said that Imam Malik was his teacher and he also learnt from Muhammad ibn-Hassan (the student of Imam Abu Hanifa). Imam Shafii died in the year 204 AH at the age of 54 in Cairo, Egypt.