Al-Muwatta of Imam Malik

Al-Muwatta of Imam Malik Ash-Sh fi' said, "After the Book of Allah, there is no book on the face of the earth sounder than the book of M lik." 'Al ' ad-D n Maghla y al- anaf said, "The first person to compile the a was M lik." Ibn ajar said, "The book of M lik is sound by all the criteria that are demanded as proofs in the mursal, munqa i' and other types of transmission." As-Suy followed Ibn ajar's judgement and said, "It is absolutely correct to say that the Muwa a' is sound ( a ) without exception." Al-Bukh r and Muslim transmitted most of its ad ths and included them in their a collections. The authors of the rest of the six books, the Im m of the ad th scholars, A mad ibn anbal, and others did the same. In addition, the Muwa a' contains a record of the practice ('amal) of the people of Mad nah of the first generations, a transmission of the ethos that permeated the city, and Im m M lik's painstaking clarification of the Sunna, the ad ths, the practice and legal judgements. Im m M lik ibn anas (93 AH/711 CE - 179 AH/795 CE) Imam M lik's full name is M lik ibn Anas ibn M lik ibn Ab ' mir al-A ba and he was related to Dh A ba, a sub-tribe of imyar. He was instructed in the learning and recitation of the Noble Qur' n by Im m N fi' ibn 'Abd ar-Ra m n ibn Ab Nu'aym, the Im m of the reciters of Mad na and one of the 'seven reciters'. Among the huge number of his teachers in ad th and fiqh were N fi', the mawl of 'Abdull h ibn 'Umar, and Ibn Shih b az-Zuhr . He sat to give fatw when he was seventeen years old after seventy Im ms had testified that he was worthy to give fatw and teach. His own students included Im m ash-Sh fi' and Im m Muhammad ibn al- asan ash-Shayb n the anaf mujtahid, as well as a great number of Im ms of ad th and fiqh, and thus he is known as Im m al-A'immah 'the Im m of the Im ms'. He is recognised to be the subject of the hadith from Ab Hurayra i: "The Messenger of Allah @ said, 'There will come a time when the people will beat the livers of their camels in search of knowledge and they will not find an ' lim with more knowledge than the ' lim of Mad na.'"