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Imam Malik ibn Anas — The Scholar of Madinah Who Wrote the First Book of Islamic Law
Imam Malik never left Madinah. He didn't need to. The entire Muslim world came to him. He compiled the Muwatta — the earliest surviving book of Islamic law — and built a school of thought rooted in the living tradition of the Prophet's own city. His legacy now dominates North Africa, West Africa, and Al-Andalus.
Here's something that tells you everything about Imam Malik. When the Abbasid Caliph wanted to make Malik's book the official law of the entire Muslim empire, Malik said no.
His reasoning? The Companions had spread across the world after the Prophet's death. Each city had its own traditions and knowledge. Forcing one book on everyone would be unjust.
That's the kind of scholar he was — so committed to truth that he wouldn't even let a caliph give him a monopoly.
Where the Maliki School Dominates
Born in the Prophet's City
Imam Malik's full name was Malik ibn Anas ibn Malik ibn Abi Amir al-Asbahi. Born in 711 CE (93 AH) in Madinah — the city of the Prophet (SAW) himself.
His family had deep roots there. His grandfather Malik ibn Abi Amir was a Tabi'i — a member of the generation right after the Companions — who had narrated hadiths from prominent Sahaba including Umar ibn al-Khattab, Uthman ibn Affan, and Talha ibn Ubaydullah (RA). His great-grandfather Abu Amir was a Companion who fought in every major battle alongside the Prophet except Badr.
This wasn't some random family that happened to live in Madinah. Malik's lineage was woven directly into the fabric of Islamic history — Companions, Tabi'in, and hadith narrators going back to the Prophet's own era.
His father Anas was also a hadith narrator, though a minor one. The family wasn't wealthy — they were comfortable but modest, living off a small trade in cloth and arrows.
How He Became a Scholar
Malik started seeking knowledge early — some sources say as young as 10 or 11. His mother reportedly dressed him in his best clothes, placed a turban on his head, and told him:
Go to Rabi'ah and learn from his manners before his knowledge.
— Malik's mother
That's incredible parenting advice. Learn character first, then content.
His most important teacher was Nafi', the freed slave of Abdullah ibn Umar (RA). Nafi' had served Ibn Umar for decades and narrated his hadith extensively. The chain Malik → Nafi' → Ibn Umar → the Prophet (SAW) became so famous that hadith scholars called it the "Golden Chain" (silsilat al-dhahab) — considered the most authentic chain of narration in all of hadith literature.
He also studied under Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri — arguably the greatest hadith scholar of his generation — along with dozens of other Madinan scholars. Altogether, Malik reportedly studied under around 900 scholars, of which 300 were Tabi'in.
900 scholars. In one city. Madinah in the 8th century was basically a living university, and Malik absorbed every drop of knowledge it had.
The Muwatta — Islam's First Law Book
This is Malik's masterpiece and his most lasting contribution.
The Muwatta ("The Well-Trodden Path") is the earliest surviving book of Islamic jurisprudence. Malik worked on it for approximately 40 years — revising, trimming, and refining. He reportedly started with around 10,000 hadiths and narrations. By the time he finished, he'd cut it down to roughly 1,720.
That's not sloppy editing. That's a man who refused to include anything he wasn't absolutely confident about.
The book isn't just a hadith collection — it's a complete legal manual. It covers prayer, fasting, zakat, Hajj, marriage, divorce, business transactions, criminal law, and more. Each chapter presents relevant hadiths, the practices of the Madinah community, and Malik's own legal rulings.
I presented my book to seventy scholars of Madinah, and every one of them approved it — so I called it the Muwatta (the Approved).
— Imam Malik
The Muwatta became a sensation. Copies spread across the Muslim world. Imam al-Shafi'i later said: "There is no book on the face of the earth — after the Book of Allah — more authentic than the Muwatta of Malik." Whether you agree with that assessment or not, it tells you how the early scholars viewed it.
His Methodology — Why Madinah Mattered
Here's what made Malik's approach unique compared to Abu Hanifa and later scholars.
Malik believed the living practice of the people of Madinah (amal ahl al-Madinah) was a source of law almost as strong as hadith. His logic was straightforward:
- The Prophet (SAW) lived in Madinah for the last 10 years of his life
- The Companions learned directly from him there
- They passed their knowledge to the Tabi'in, who passed it to the next generation
- So if the entire Madinah community — scholars and ordinary people alike — does something a certain way, that's a living, unbroken transmission of the Prophet's practice
This was powerful. A hadith is a verbal report passed through a chain of individuals — each link could introduce error. But the practice of an entire city? That's mass transmission. Thousands of people don't collectively make the same mistake.
For Malik, a single hadith narrated by one person couldn't override what the entire Madinah community had been doing for generations. The city itself was his strongest evidence.
This created tension with scholars from Iraq (like Abu Hanifa's students) who relied more on individual hadith narrations and analogical reasoning. The debate between "the practice of Madinah" vs. "isolated hadiths" became one of the defining intellectual conflicts of early Islamic scholarship.
Malik also used maslaha mursala (consideration of public interest) — the idea that in the absence of a specific text, a ruling could be based on what genuinely serves the welfare of the Muslim community. This principle later became a major tool in Maliki jurisprudence.
His Students — A Who's Who of Islamic Scholarship
Malik's teaching circle in Madinah attracted students from across the Muslim world. Some of them became the greatest scholars in history.
Imam al-Shafi'i (Muhammad ibn Idris) — the founder of the Shafi'i school — studied under Malik as a teenager. He memorized the entire Muwatta before even arriving in Madinah. Al-Shafi'i remained deeply influenced by Malik throughout his career, even when he disagreed with him on specific issues.
Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Shaybani — Abu Hanifa's star student — also studied under Malik and transmitted the Muwatta. This cross-pollination between the Hanafi and Maliki schools happened through real relationships, not just books.
Ibn al-Qasim (Abd al-Rahman ibn al-Qasim) — the most important transmitter of the Maliki school. He studied with Malik for around 20 years and his book al-Mudawwana, compiled by his student Sahnun, became the foundational legal text of the Maliki madhab.
Asad ibn al-Furat — carried Maliki jurisprudence to North Africa. He's also the military commander who led the Muslim conquest of Sicily in 827 CE. Scholar and general.
The fact that the founders of both the Shafi'i school and the core Hanafi transmission studied under Malik tells you something — even if you didn't follow his madhab, you had to engage with his scholarship. He was unavoidable.
What He Was Like
Malik was known for an almost intimidating level of dignity and seriousness — especially when it came to hadith.
Before narrating a hadith of the Prophet (SAW), he would perform wudu, put on his best clothes, apply perfume, and sit upright in a composed posture. If anyone in his circle was being disrespectful or casual, he would stop the session entirely.
I do this out of reverence for the hadith of the Messenger of Allah (SAW). I do not like to narrate the hadith of the Messenger of Allah except in a state of purity and composure.
— Imam Malik
He wasn't being dramatic. He genuinely believed that handling the Prophet's words was a sacred responsibility — and the physical act of preparation reflected internal reverence.
In his personal life, he was modest. He lived in a simple house in Madinah. He wore plain white clothes. He was generous but not flashy. When students came from far away and couldn't afford to stay, he'd help arrange their lodging and food.
He was also brutally honest about the limits of knowledge. One of his most famous principles:
I don't know.
— Imam Malik — his most frequent answer, by his own account
He reportedly said "I don't know" to more questions than he actually answered. A scholar once traveled from Morocco to Madinah — a journey of months — to ask Malik 40 questions. Malik answered only a handful and said "I don't know" to the rest. When the man protested, Malik told him: "Go back to your people and tell them Malik says 'I don't know.'"
The Flogging
This is the most painful chapter of his life.
In 764 CE, the Abbasid governor of Madinah, Ja'far ibn Sulayman, ordered Malik to stop narrating a particular hadith. The hadith in question was about the validity of oaths given under coercion — specifically that a forced divorce is not binding. The political context was sensitive: the Abbasids didn't want people using this hadith to invalidate pledges of allegiance to the caliph.
Malik refused to stop teaching it. A scholar doesn't suppress hadith because it's politically inconvenient.
The governor had Malik publicly flogged. The beating was so severe that his arm was dislocated from its socket. Some sources say he was pulled and stretched by his arm until it was wrenched out. He never fully recovered the use of that arm — which is why some narrations describe him praying with his arms at his sides rather than folded.
He was flogged for narrating a hadith. Not for rebellion, not for treason — for teaching what the Prophet (SAW) said. And he never stopped teaching it.
The Abbasid Caliph al-Mansur later apologized and the governor was removed. But the damage to Malik's body was permanent.
The Caliph's Offer He Refused
After the flogging incident, the Abbasid caliphs tried to make amends. Al-Mansur — and later Harun al-Rashid — both visited Malik in Madinah and showed him enormous respect.
Al-Mansur offered to make the Muwatta the official law book of the entire Abbasid Empire — to be hung on the Ka'bah itself as the standard. Every judge in every city would be required to follow it.
Malik refused.
The Companions of the Prophet dispersed throughout the lands after his death, and each carried knowledge with them. If you force the people to follow one opinion, you will cause great strife.
— Imam Malik to Caliph al-Mansur
Think about what he turned down. He could have had his book become the single legal standard for the entire Muslim world. Absolute monopoly. Total dominance. He said no — because it would be intellectually dishonest to pretend one book covered everything, and because he respected the knowledge that existed in other cities.
Death and Burial
Imam Malik died in 795 CE (179 AH) in Madinah at the age of approximately 83 or 84 — making him one of the longest-lived of the four great imams. He was buried in al-Baqi' cemetery in Madinah, the same graveyard where many of the Prophet's Companions and family members are buried.
He never left Madinah except for Hajj. He was born there, studied there, taught there, and died there. The entire Muslim world came to him — he didn't need to go to it.
His Legacy — From Madinah to Three Continents
The Maliki school spread through Malik's students who returned to their homelands and established it as the dominant legal tradition.
North Africa (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya) became and remains almost entirely Maliki — thanks to scholars like Ibn al-Qasim and Sahnun who brought the tradition there.
West Africa (Nigeria, Senegal, Mali, Mauritania, and much of Sub-Saharan Africa) follows the Maliki school, spread through trade routes and scholarly networks across the Sahara.
Al-Andalus (Muslim Spain and Portugal) was Maliki from the 8th century until the end of Muslim rule in 1492. The great scholars of Cordoba, Seville, and Granada were Malikis.
Parts of the Gulf (Bahrain, Kuwait, parts of the UAE and Qatar) also follow the Maliki school.
Today, the Maliki school is the dominant madhab across most of Africa and was historically the school of Islamic Spain. It's the second or third largest madhab by number of followers.
A scholar who never left one city shaped the religious practice of an entire continent. That's not influence — that's legacy on a civilizational scale.
Malik's approach — grounding law in living tradition, demanding extreme care in hadith narration, prioritizing community practice over isolated reports, and having the courage to say "I don't know" — set a standard that scholars still measure themselves against today.
Not bad for a man whose mother's first instruction was: learn manners before knowledge.
Quran References
More Scholars
Imam Abu Hanifa — The Scholar Who Built Islamic Law on Reason and Evidence
Nu'man ibn Thabit — better known as Abu Hanifa — was a self-made merchant, a fearless scholar, and the founder of the largest school of Islamic jurisprudence in history. He refused to bow to political power, revolutionized how fiqh is done, and his legacy now guides over a third of the Muslim world.
Imam Ahmad ibn Hanbal — The Man Who Refused to Break
Ahmad ibn Hanbal was publicly flogged, imprisoned for over two years, and threatened with execution — all because he refused to say the Quran was created. He never broke. His stubbornness in the face of state-sponsored persecution saved Sunni orthodoxy, and his obsessive devotion to hadith produced the largest collection of prophetic narrations in Islamic history. His school now dominates Saudi Arabia and the Gulf.
Imam al-Shafi'i — The Genius Who Unified Islamic Legal Theory
Muhammad ibn Idris al-Shafi'i was an orphan from Gaza who memorized the Quran by age seven, mastered Malik's Muwatta by heart, and then went on to create something no one had done before — a systematic theory of how Islamic law itself works. His book al-Risala became the constitution of usul al-fiqh, and his school now dominates Southeast Asia, East Africa, and much of the Arab world.