Malik’s most famous student, however, was a very different creature and a symbol of an interconnected new day. Muhammad bin Idris Shafi‘i was born in Gaza, studied for many years with Malik in Medina, served as the Abbasid governor in the Yemeni city of Najran, traveled to Baghdad to study with Abu Hanifa’s acolyte Shaybani and others and ended his days settled in Egypt. His travels showed Shafi‘i how isolated and idiosyncratic the local schools of Islam really were.
