The Maliki School

1A scholar who never wanted to leave Madinah

Picture Madinah in the second century after the Hijrah. The Companions of the Prophet ﷺ have passed away, but their children and students still walk the same streets, pray in the same mosque and remember how their fathers prayed, acted and judged. In this city a boy named Malik ibn Anas grows up. He will become one of the greatest scholars in Islamic history, and the school that bears his name is followed by many millions of people to this day.

Imam Malik, may Allah have mercy on him, was born in Madinah, spent his whole life there and passed away there in the year 179 after the Hijrah (795 CE). Apart from the pilgrimage, he hardly ever left the city. This was not comfort but love and reverence: he wanted to live and die close to the Prophet ﷺ. It is reported that out of respect for the place where the Prophet ﷺ is buried, he would not ride a mount within Madinah.

Learning from the heirs of the Companions

It is said that when he set out to study, his mother dressed him in the clothes of the scholars and told him: go to Rabi'ah and learn his manners before his knowledge. That sentence has accompanied the Maliki tradition ever since: adab before 'ilm – good conduct before knowledge.

Among his teachers were the great names of Madinah:

• Nafi', the freed servant of Abdullah ibn Umar, may Allah be pleased with them. The chain "Malik from Nafi' from Ibn Umar" was praised by al-Bukhari as one of the strongest chains of transmission and became known as the "golden chain".
• Ibn Shihab az-Zuhri, one of the foremost hadith scholars of his time.
• Rabi'ah ibn Abi Abd ar-Rahman, called Rabi'at ar-Ra'y, a master of legal reasoning.
• Yahya ibn Sa'id al-Ansari and many other scholars of the city.
• Imam Malik also narrated from Ja'far as-Sadiq, the great-grandson of al-Husayn, and spoke of him with deep respect.

He is reported to have sat down to teach and give legal opinions only after many of the scholars of Madinah had testified that he was qualified to do so.

Reverence for the hadith

There are many reports of how Imam Malik honoured the hadith. Before narrating the words of the Prophet ﷺ, he is said to have taken a full bath, put on perfume and clean clothes, and sat with dignity. His lessons were quiet and serious. One could feel that this was not just any knowledge being discussed, but the legacy of the Messenger of Allah ﷺ.

Just as famous is his humility. When he was not certain, he would say without embarrassment: "I do not know." It is reported that a man came from far away with many questions and received this answer to a large share of them. For Imam Malik, "I do not know" was itself part of knowledge. A scholar who, out of awe of Allah, stays silent where he is unsure teaches us more than a thousand quick answers.

The beautiful saying is also attributed to him, spoken while pointing to the grave of the Prophet ﷺ: the words of every person may be accepted or rejected – except those of the one in this grave.

Steadfast in trial

Imam Malik did not live apart from the world. He witnessed changes of power and unrest, and he held firm to what he believed to be right. It is well known that he was flogged by the governor of Madinah of the day because of a legal opinion – that a divorce pronounced under coercion is not valid. He bore it with patience, and people's esteem for him only grew.

When the caliph Abu Ja'far al-Mansur suggested making the Muwatta' the single binding law book throughout the empire, Imam Malik declined, according to the well-known report. The Companions of the Prophet ﷺ, he explained, had spread to many lands, and each region had received knowledge from them. People should be left with what they know. This moment says a great deal about him: a scholar who had the chance to impose his view on everyone, and who chose not to out of respect for other scholars.

He also preserved the dignity of knowledge before the caliph Harun ar-Rashid. The saying is attributed to him: knowledge is visited; it does not go visiting.

2The Muwatta' – "the well-trodden path"

Imam Malik's principal work is al-Muwatta', meaning roughly "the smoothed, well-trodden path". He worked on it for many years, revising, shortening and refining it again and again. The book brings together:

• sayings and actions of the Prophet ﷺ,
• statements and rulings of the Companions,
• views of the following generation (the Tabi'un),
• the lived practice of Madinah and Imam Malik's own rulings.

It is thus one of the oldest surviving works to unite hadith and jurisprudence in a single book. Imam ash-Shafi'i, who himself studied with Malik, is reported to have said that after the Book of Allah there was no book on earth more correct than Malik's book – words spoken before the great Sahih collections were compiled.

The Muwatta' has come down in several transmissions (riwayat), because many students heard it directly from Malik. The best known is that of the Andalusian Yahya ibn Yahya al-Laythi; another important one comes from Muhammad ibn al-Hasan ash-Shaybani, the great student of Abu Hanifah. That a leading Hanafi scholar heard and transmitted the Muwatta' from Malik shows how closely the scholars of the different schools were connected in those days.

In the collection of at-Tirmidhi there is a hadith saying that people will one day travel far in search of knowledge and find no one more learned than the scholar of Madinah. At-Tirmidhi reports that Sufyan ibn Uyaynah understood this scholar to be Malik ibn Anas.

3The method: how the Malikis derive rulings

At its heart, every school of law is a method (usul al-fiqh): a way of deriving rulings for life from the Quran and the Sunnah. The Maliki method is distinguished by two things: its deep roots in the practice of Madinah, and its broad attention to the common good.

The sources

1. 1The Quran – the word of Allah, the foundation of everything.
2. 2The Sunnah – the words, actions and approvals of the Prophet ﷺ.
3. 3Consensus (ijma') of the scholars.
4. 4The practice of the people of Madinah ('amal ahl al-Madinah) – the distinctive feature of the school.
5. 5Analogy (qiyas) – a new question is judged by a known case when the reason behind the ruling is the same.

Alongside these come further principles that the Malikis use especially widely:

• al-Masalih al-mursalah: the common good, where no text explicitly settles a matter, as long as it agrees with the aims of the Shari'ah.
• Istihsan: juristic preference, departing from strict analogy in a particular case in order to follow a stronger reason.
• Sadd adh-dhara'i': blocking the means that foreseeably lead to harm.
• 'Urf: taking local custom into account where it does not contradict the Shari'ah.
• Istishab: presuming the existing state of affairs continues until the contrary is established.
• The statements of the Companions carry great weight in the school.

Why the practice of Madinah matters so much

For Imam Malik, Madinah was not a city like any other. Here the Prophet ﷺ had lived for ten years, praying, teaching and judging. What the whole city did together, generation after generation – such as the form of the call to prayer or certain measures and weights – was for him like a living transmission, carried not by a single narrator but by thousands.

That is why, in certain cases, the transmitted practice of Madinah could weigh more heavily in the Maliki school than a single hadith narrated by only a few people. This does not mean the Malikis held the hadith in low regard – quite the opposite: they understood the practice of Madinah as the most visible form of the Sunnah. Other scholars, including Imam ash-Shafi'i, saw it differently and discussed the matter respectfully with the Malikis. Such discussions are not quarrels; they are part of the rich heritage of this ummah.

The aims of the Shari'ah

The Maliki school has thought especially deeply about why Allah's commands exist. The Andalusian scholar ash-Shatibi (Abu Ishaq) developed in his work al-Muwafaqat the doctrine of the maqasid ash-Shari'ah, the aims of the Shari'ah: the protection of religion, life, intellect, lineage and property. These ideas still shape the thinking of Muslim scholars all over the world today, far beyond the Maliki school.

4The students and the passing on of knowledge

A teacher lives on in his students. People came to Madinah from every part of the Islamic world to study with Imam Malik and carried his knowledge back to their homelands.

• Abd ar-Rahman ibn al-Qasim from Egypt accompanied Imam Malik for many years. His transmission of his teacher's views became the most important foundation of the later school.
• Abdullah ibn Wahb and Ashhab, also from Egypt, were among his great students.
• Asad ibn al-Furat from North Africa studied with Malik and later also with students of Abu Hanifah in Iraq.
• Yahya ibn Yahya al-Laythi brought the Muwatta' to Andalusia. It is told that once an elephant passed by Malik's circle and all the students ran out to look at it – only Yahya remained seated. He said he had come to see Malik, not to see elephants. Malik then called him the wise one of Andalusia.
• Muhammad ibn Idris ash-Shafi'i, who would later found a school of his own, also studied with him and spoke of his teacher with great love all his life.

The Mudawwana

The second foundational work of the school has a special story: the Mudawwana. Asad ibn al-Furat put a large number of legal questions to Ibn al-Qasim in Egypt and wrote down his answers. Later Sahnun (Abd as-Salam ibn Sa'id at-Tanukhi) travelled from Kairouan in today's Tunisia to Ibn al-Qasim, went through these questions with him once more, and arranged and completed them. Thus arose al-Mudawwana al-Kubra, the great collection of legal questions according to the teaching of Imam Malik. Alongside the Muwatta', it became the heart of the school, especially in North Africa and Andalusia.

5Great scholars of the school

Over the centuries the Maliki school has produced a long line of scholars whose works are still read today. Some of them:

• Ibn Abi Zayd al-Qayrawani of Kairouan, who because of his standing was called "the little Malik". His Risala is a compact textbook combining the foundations of belief, worship, ethics and everyday law. Countless students in Africa and beyond have begun their path into knowledge with this book.
• Ibn Abd al-Barr of Andalusia, who explained the Muwatta' comprehensively in at-Tamhid and al-Istidhkar.
• Al-Qadi Iyad of Ceuta, famous for ash-Shifa, a book on the rights and rank of the Prophet ﷺ, and for Tartib al-Madarik, a great biographical collection of Maliki scholars.
• Ibn Rushd the grandfather, a leading judge and jurist of Córdoba, and his grandson Ibn Rushd, whose Bidayat al-Mujtahid sets the views of the different schools side by side and explains their reasons – a masterpiece of respectful comparison.
• Abu Bakr ibn al-Arabi of Seville, with his work on the legal rulings of the Quran.
• Al-Qurtubi, whose Quran commentary al-Jami' li-Ahkam al-Qur'an is among the great works of tafsir. If you learn verse by verse at Quran Masterclass, you will meet his thoughts again and again in the tafsir literature.
• Al-Qarafi of Egypt, with adh-Dhakhirah and al-Furuq, in which he worked out fine distinctions between legal principles.
• Ash-Shatibi of Granada, with al-Muwafaqat on the aims of the Shari'ah.
• Khalil ibn Ishaq, whose Mukhtasar – an extremely dense summary of the school's positions – became the central teaching text of later centuries. Numerous commentaries and glosses have been written on it.
• In more recent times, Muhammad at-Tahir ibn Ashur of Tunis, whose Quran commentary at-Tahrir wa-t-Tanwir and whose work on the aims of the Shari'ah are valued far beyond North Africa.

6Where the school is at home

From Madinah the Maliki school spread first to Egypt, then to North Africa and Andalusia. Centres of learning such as Kairouan, the Zaytunah in Tunis and the Qarawiyyin in Fez – founded in the 9th century by Fatimah al-Fihri and one of the oldest still-existing places of learning in the world – became beacons of Maliki scholarship.

Today the school is followed above all in:

• North Africa: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Mauritania;
• West and Central Africa: for example Senegal, Mali, Niger, Nigeria, Guinea and other countries of the Sahel;
• parts of Egypt (especially Upper Egypt) and Sudan;
• the Gulf region, where the Maliki school has a long tradition, including in the United Arab Emirates.

For centuries Andalusia shaped the school: in Córdoba, Seville and Granada, Maliki scholars taught whose books are still studied. And in West Africa, the manuscript libraries of Timbuktu and Chinguetti bear witness to the devotion with which generations of scholars preserved, copied and handed on knowledge – often in tents and mud-brick houses, beneath the starry desert sky.

A heritage in the Emirates and the Gulf

If you live in the Emirates, the Maliki school may be closer to you than you think. Many families in the Gulf have learned their religion according to this school for generations: how to make wudu, how to pray, how to fast. The grandparents who taught a child to pray were often passing on exactly this heritage, without making much of the school's name. It was simply "our prayer".

At the same time, the country is home to people from all over the world who follow other schools. Here something shows that is entirely in the spirit of Imam Malik: loving one's own tradition while honouring others. Remember how he asked the caliph not to impose his book on everyone. This attitude – wasatiyyah, moderation and balance – fits the community Allah describes in the Quran: "And thus We have made you a middle nation" 2:143.

7What you may notice in daily life

Anyone who sees Malikis pray for the first time sometimes notices small differences. They are no cause for surprise, let alone division; they are the fruit of careful scholarship grounded in narrations and in the practice of Madinah.

• The arms while standing: Many Malikis, especially in North and West Africa, let their arms hang loosely at their sides in prayer (sadl). Others place one hand over the other. Both are discussed within the school and have their reasons.
• The basmala: In the obligatory prayers, according to the traditional Maliki teaching, no basmala is recited before al-Fatihah, following the practice of Madinah.
• The closing salam: One praying alone or leading the prayer traditionally ends it with a single salam, turning slightly to the right.
• The supplication in the dawn prayer: The qunut in the Fajr prayer is regarded as recommended in the school and is said quietly.

Details like these show how closely the scholars looked. When you pray behind an imam of another school, or a Maliki beside you stands differently from you, remember: everyone is seeking the same Sunnah, and everyone is facing the same Kaaba.

8The contribution to Islamic civilisation

The Maliki school produced far more than law books. It shaped the courts of entire realms, the administration of markets and endowments (awqaf), and scholarship from Andalusia to Timbuktu. Its attention to the common good and to local custom made it adaptable without losing its roots. Its work on the aims of the Shari'ah is today a foundation for scholars dealing with new questions – from medicine to economics.

And perhaps its most beautiful gift: the bond between knowledge and conduct. The mother who sent her son to Rabi'ah so that he would first learn adab; the imam who bathed and perfumed himself before teaching hadith; the scholar who said "I do not know" – they teach us that knowledge without humility remains empty.

9A closing word

The Prophet ﷺ said: "Whomever Allah wants good for, He gives understanding of the religion" (al-Bukhari and Muslim). Imam Malik devoted his whole life to that understanding, in the city he loved so dearly. The Maliki school is one of the schools that Muslims throughout the world recognise as part of their shared heritage – alongside the Hanafi, Shafi'i and Hanbali schools and the further schools named by the Amman Message: Ja'fari, Zaydi, Ibadi and Zahiri.

Whether you are Maliki yourself or follow another school: the next time you hear an imam recite al-Fatihah in the Emirates, in Fez or in Dakar, you are hearing an echo of Madinah. May Allah richly reward Imam Malik and all the imams, have mercy on them, and make us people who seek knowledge with love and carry it with humility.