The second leading jurisprudent: Malik b. Anas (d. 179/795)

The second leading jurisprudent, Malik b. Anas b. Malik b. Abi 'Amir al-Asbahi al-Madani (93—179/712—795), was the ‘amir al-mu'mintn of hadith’, ‘imam dar al-hijra’, ‘jurist of the Hejaz’, and its scholar during his time.²¹ He belonged to a notable family.

He constantly accompanied 'Abd al-Rahman b. Hurmuz, who was known as al-A'raj (d. 117/735) for 13 years. He studied under Nafi', the freedman of Ibn 'Umar, and asked him about the opinions of Ibn 'Umar. In addition, he studied under Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri, the keeper of Sa'id b. al-Musayyib and the jurisprudent of the Successors of Medina, and sat with Muhammad b. al-Munkadir, Yahya b. Sa'id al-Ansari, and other scholars affiliated with them. He also accompanied and transmitted from Ja'far al-Sadiq. In total, he learned material from over 900 scholars.

It appears that he learned from his peers and incorporated their thoughts and opinions into his teaching, which made him a prominent jurist and drew scholars and students to him from all over the Muslim world. He began teaching when he was 17, while his teachers were still alive and the city’s scholars were growing in number. He lived in Medina for 70 years and never stopped narrating, engaging in iftaand teaching. Scholars reflected on his scholarship and said, ‘No one else should grant legal responsa while Malik is in Medina’ (la yufta wa-Malik fi al-Madtna) because of his vast knowledge and the high calibre of his teaching.

His peers and counterparts benefited greatly from his teachings, including Muhammad b. Ibrahim b. Dinar (d. 182/798), who had studied under Ibn Hurmuz. Al-Shafi'i, al-Mughira b. 'Abd al-Rahman al-Makhzumi, 'Abd al-Aziz b. Abi Hazim (d. 184/800), and Ahmad b. Hanbal testified to his knowledge in jurisprudence; and Sufyan al-Thawri, the ‘scholar of Iraq’, used to ask Malik to compete with other members of his circle.

Many leading Ijtihad scholars transmitted about him, such as Abu Hanifa, the ‘scholar of Iraq’; Sufyan b. 'Uyayna, the ‘scholar of Mecca’; Muslim b. Khalid al-Zanji (al-Shafi'i’s teacher); Ibn Jurayj, the ‘jurist of the Grand Mosque’; al-Awza'i, the ‘scholar of Syria’; al- Layth b. Sa'd, the ‘scholar of Egypt’; Ibn Abi Dhi’b, a notable scholar in Medina; 'Abdul­lah b. Mubarak, a disciple of Abu Hanifa, Abu Yusuf, Muhammad b. Hasan al-Shaybani, and others. Among Malik’s teachers who transmitted from and needed his knowledge were Zayd b. Aslam, Yahya b. Sa'id al-Ansari, Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri, Rabi'a, and Ayyub al-Sakhtiyani.

Malik tracked the Companions’ legal responsa and the Successors’ jurisprudence until he emerged as the most knowledgeable person of Medinan hadith and the most reliable judge re­garding chains of authority. Al-Shafi' i called him the ‘star of hadith’, and Yahya b. Ma' in praised him both for his manners and for his knowledge and considered him a sign of God’s blessing on His creatures. Moreover, he acted upon his knowledge, especially when he disapproved of the caliph Abu Ja'far al-Mansur and was reluctant to take the oath of allegiance to him. The news reached Ja'far b. Sulayman, the deputy of Medina, who then summoned and rebuked Malik. The ensuing whipping he received for voicing this opinion dislocated his shoulder. His only reply was to ask God to forgive them because they did not know what they were doing.

Contemporary and later scholars competed to record his biography and their writings reflected his tremendous influence.

Malik constructed his legal doctrine on the following five principles: the explicit Qur’anic text (nass); the apparent (zdhir) meaning derived from a general and non-specific text; the evidence (daldl) of a text that may have an interpretation that diverges from its obvious mean­ing; an implication (mafhum) of the text, which has an added meaning that coincides with its obvious meaning; and an expositive text (tanbth) that reports the underlying reason for a judgement, like the statement, ‘it is filth’.

He used the Sunnah and its evidence according to a similar pattern of ten categories: consensus (ijma‘); analogy (qiyds); the practice of the people of Medina (amal ahl al-Maddna); the Companion’s statements (qawl al-sahdbd) with a proper chain of authorities (isndd); judicial preference (istihsdn) — reportedly representing nine tenths of knowledge — blocking the paths to evil (sadd al-dhara'i‘); the presumed continuance of the status quo ante (istishab); avoidance of contradictory rulings (murd'dt al-khilaf); and considerations of public interest (al-masdlih al-mursala).

Malik’s Muwatta' was the first written hadith collection comprising the subjects of Islamic jurisprudence and the first legal work to incorporate and combine hadith and law. This widely praised work is considered among the earliest extant hadith collections that, alongside the Qur'an, form the basis of Islamic jurisprudence. It is far more than that, though, for many of the legal precepts it contains are not based on hadith. The book covers the rituals, rites, customs, traditions, norms, and laws of the Prophet’s time. It is reported that Malik included in it only about 1% of the 100,000 authentic hadith reports available to him.²² He adopted great diligence and meticulousness in order to respond to the increasing number of disputed opinions in the law and to fulfill a personal request from Caliph Abu Jafar al-Mansur to produce a work that could be promulgated as the Empire’s standard law book.²³

Given that such a work should exemplify the principle of the Prophet that ‘The best matters are those which are balanced’, he devised a compendium of the agreed-upon views of the Companions and the elder scholars on religious and legal issues.²⁴ Another historical report suggests that the date of Caliph Abu Jafar al-Mansur’s (r. 136—158/753—775) death was misreported, since it took Malik 40 years to write this work; he completed it in 176/792, three years before his own death.²⁵ It has been said that he revised the Muwatta' several times to make it as useful as possible for Muslims and the best for Islam. According to al-Qadi 'Iyad, if Malik had lived longer he would have summarized all of his work and left nothing to chance.²⁶

According to al-Qadi Tyad, Ibn Farhun, and Ibn al-Nadim, Malik composed many treaties, such as Risala ‘ila Harun al-Rashid (Epistle to Harun al-Rashid, on manners and exhortation to good deeds), Risala fi al-Fatwa (Epistle on Legal Questions, addressed to his companion and prominent Medinan scholar Abu Ghassan Muhammad b. al-Mutarrif al-Laythi), Kitab fi al-Tfsir li-Gharib al-Qur'an, which was transmitted by Khalid b. 'Abd al-Rahman al-Makhzumi, Risala ila al-Layth b. Sa‘d fi Ijma ‘ Ahl al-Madina, Kitab al-Sira, which was transmitted by 'Abd al-Rahman b. al-Qasim, and Masa'il wa-Ajwibatuha, which was transmitted by 'Abdullah b. 'Abd al-Hakam (d. 214/829).²⁷