Malik ibn Anas
- Died
- 179 AH
- Born in
- Medina
Malik ibn Anas (93–179 AH / 711–795 CE) was a leading Medinan jurist and hadith traditionist, known by the honorific Imam Dar al-Hijrah (the Imam of Medina), the eponym of the Maliki school of law, and the author of al-Muwatta .
Lineage and Early Life
His full genealogy is Abu Abd Allah Malik ibn Anas ibn Malik ibn Abi Amir ibn Amr ibn al-Harith ibn Ghayman ibn Khuthayl ibn Amr ibn al-Harith, tracing his ancestry to the Himyarite tribe of Dhu Asbah . His mother was Aliyah bint Sharik al-Azdiyyah . His paternal grandfather, Malik ibn Abi Amir, was an early transmitter and a confederate (halif) of the Qurayshite clan of Banu Taym through Uthman ibn Ubayd Allah, the brother of the Companion Talhah ibn Ubayd Allah .
Malik was born in Medina, with the most widely accepted date of his birth being 93 AH, corresponding to the year of the death of the Companion Anas ibn Malik . Other reports place his birth in 90, 91, 94, 95, or 97 AH . Classical biographers describe him as tall, large-headed, bald, with a white beard and fair complexion tending toward reddish tones, and noted for wearing fine Adeni robes .
Education and Teaching
Malik began seeking knowledge in his early teens and began teaching and issuing legal opinions at the age of twenty-one, stating that he did not issue fatwas until seventy scholars had attested to his qualification to do so . He remained in Medina throughout his life, never leaving except for the pilgrimage to Mecca . He studied under prominent Successors, closely accompanying Ibn Hurmuz for fifteen years and learning from Ibn Shihab al-Zuhri, Nafi' (the client of Ibn Umar), Rabi'at al-Ra'y, Zayd ibn Aslam, and Ja'far al-Sadiq .
His teaching circle in the Prophet's Mosque attracted students from across the Islamic world . Among his notable contemporaries and students who transmitted from him were Sufyan al-Thawri, al-Awza'i, Sufyan ibn Uyaynah, Shu'bah ibn al-Hajjaj, al-Shafi'i, Abd al-Rahman ibn Mahdi, Abd Allah ibn Wahb, and Yahya ibn Yahya al-Laythi .
Legal Methodology and Standing
In jurisprudence, Malik derived legal rulings from the Quran, the Sunnah, and the established practice of Medina ('amal ahl al-Madinah), viewing Medinan customary practice as a reliable inherited normative tradition . He was noted for rigorous scrutiny in selecting his narrators and for cautious restraint in legal derivation, frequently answering questions with "I do not know" (la adri) . His hadith transmission chain through Nafi' from Abd Allah ibn Umar was characterized by al-Bukhari as the soundest of all chains (asahh al-asanid) .
His legal compendium, al-Muwatta, compiled prophetic traditions alongside Companion opinions and Medinan rulings, was celebrated by contemporaries; al-Shafi'i remarked that whenever scholars are mentioned, Malik is the shining star . Later scholars also preserved his legal responsa in al-Mudawwana and transmitted his moral and governing counsel in an epistolary treatise addressed to the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid .
Trial
In 146 AH (with variants giving 144 or 147 AH), Malik faced a public trial under the governor of Medina, Ja'far ibn Sulayman ibn Ali . Opponents reported to the governor that Malik narrated the hadith stating that a divorce under coercion is null (laysa 'ala mustakrahin talaq), a ruling seen by authorities as implicitly invalidating forced oaths of political allegiance (bay'ah) to the Abbasid caliphate .
Malik was arrested, stripped, and flogged with up to seventy lashes, resulting in his shoulder being dislocated . When the caliph al-Mansur learned of the punishment, he expressed disapproval, apologized to Malik during the pilgrimage season, and sought to reconcile with him .
Death
Toward the end of his life, Malik withdrew gradually from public attendance at the mosque, funerals, and social gatherings due to an undisclosed physical illness later identified as urinary incontinence .
After an illness lasting twenty-two days, he died in Medina in 179 AH (with an isolated report giving 178 AH) . The exact date is reported as 14 Rabi' al-Awwal, with variants giving the 10th, 11th, or 13th of the month, or the month of Safar . His age at death is variously cited as eighty-four, eighty-seven, eighty-nine, or ninety years . The funeral prayer was led by the governor of Medina, Abd Allah ibn Muhammad ibn Ibrahim al-Abbasi, and Malik was buried in the al-Baqi' cemetery near the grave of the Prophet's son Ibrahim .
Answer updated
List of Works
This work is a major transmission and juristic recension of the early legal and hadith collection al-Muwatta, transmitted with extensive commentary by Muhammad ibn al-Hasan al-Shaybani. The recension organizes prophetic hadiths and statements of the Companions and Successors systematically under topical headings, pairing each group of reports with juristic commentary, legal deductions, and comparative analysis of early regional legal traditions.
This epistolary treatise consists of moral counsel and religious instruction framed as direct advice to the Abbasid caliph Harun al-Rashid. Composed in an exhortatory style, the work reminds the ruler of his accountability before God, treating the inevitability of death, the Day of Judgment, and the afterlife while offering guidance on cultivating piety, maintaining self-discipline, and governing in accordance with prophetic practice and proper conduct.
This work is a prominent recension of the early hadith and legal compendium al-Muwatta, transmitted by the Medinan jurist and judge Abu Mus'ab al-Zuhri. Regarded among the latest transmissions received from the source text, it preserves the foundational body of legal traditions along with approximately one hundred additional narrations not found in several other versions of the collection.
This recension is the primary and most widely circulated transmission of the early hadith and jurisprudence compendium al-Muwatta, narrated by Yahya ibn Yahya al-Laythi. Arranged into thematic books covering acts of worship, commercial transactions, and social conduct, the work brings together prophetic hadiths, statements of the Companions, rulings of the Successors, and established Medinan legal practice.
Also known as al-Mudawwana al-kubra or al-Mukhtalata, this work is the foundational compendium of substantive law in the Maliki school. Compiled by Sahnun from the legal transmissions, opinions, and reasoned determinations of Abd al-Rahman ibn al-Qasim, the text covers a wide spectrum of legal topics, primarily structured around questions and answers supported by prophetic traditions and early reports.