He (G. P. H) suffered much pain and illness, particularly from hemorrhoids, which worsened a great deal in his latter days.

His condition became so severe that he used to bleed from his rectum when mounting (an animal) and he always had a padded bowl into which his blood dripped.

Few suffered from illness as he suffered, but still he was not distracted from study, research and reading.

The Messenger of Allah (P. B. U. H), when he was asked about the most afflicted people, said: "The prophets, then the like, then the like,"

[Al-Tirmithi, Vol. 4, The Book of Asceticism, Chapter 56/23 98]

So it is further testimony to Al-Shafi'i's status to find this great man in his great state of difficulty.

When he was in the final stages of illness, his student AL-Muzni, entered upon him and asked: "How are you today?"

He said: "I woke up moving away from this world, leaving my brothers, drinking of the cup of death, coming to Allah, and I do not know whether my soul will be going to Paradise so that I might congratulate it or to Hell so that I might console it, and then he wept".

In the last night of Rajab in the year 204 hijra, his pure soul moved to its creator, at the age of fifty four years.

The next day, in the afternoon, hundreds of thousands of people went out to take Al-Shafi'i to his final abode in Al-Qarafa in Egypt.

People were stunned by the news of his death, and sadness was written all over the faces of scholars, and his students were broken.

A bright page of our glorious history was turned over and a star that shone in the sky of humanity filling east and west with light, disappeared.

May Allah have mercy, be pleased and bless the resting place of Al-Shafi'i, because he was as Ahmad ibn Hanbal (G. P. H) said about him:

'Al-Shafi'i was like the sun to this world and health to a body.

Can you find a replacement for these or an alternative for them?'