ভূমিকা

Shiavault - a Vault of Shia Islamic Books Light On the Muhammadan Sunnah Or Defence of the Hadith Malik and His Muwatta’: He is Malik ibn Anas, belonging to tribe of Dhu Asbah from Himyar. He was a venerable imam who lived contemporaneously with the best of Tabi’un. There is no agreement regarding date of his birth between the year 91 and 93 H. Date of his death was the year 179 H.

Abd al-Rahman ibn Mahdi says: Leaders of people in their times are four: Sufyan al-Thawri in Kufah, Malik in Hijaz, al-Awza’i in Sham and Hammad ibn Zayd in Basrah. Of Malik’s sayings: This science is religion, so you should know from whom you take your religion. I have realized (time of) seventy among those who say: ‘The Messenger of Allah said in these pillars’, 547 but I never learnt anything from them. If the treasury was committed to the charge of anyone of them he would be trustworthy.

He used to exert his opinion in cases of ijtihad and in respect of men of knowledge attained in his town. 548 Al-Shafi’i is reported to have said: Verily the most authentic and veracious book after the Book of Allah being Muwatta’ of Malik. 549 Al-Dihlawi, in Hujjat Allah al-balighah, writes: The first class of hadith books can be realized through reading three books: al-Muwatta’ and Sahih al-Bukhari and Sahih Muslim.

And the second class were books that could not reach the position of al-Muwatta’ and two Sahihs, but they come after them in order, like Sunan of Abu Dawud and al-Tirmidhi and al-Nasa’i. The third group included Musnads and compilations written before those of al-Bukhari and Muslim, and during their time and in the period following them, containing the sahih, hasan, da’if, well-known, strange, odd, disapproved, wrong and correct, and the established and reversed traditions.

The traditionists were depending mainly upon the second class books. In Tanwir al-hawalik al-Suyuti quoted al-Qadi Abu Bark ibn al-Arabi as saying: Al-Muwatta’ is the first source, and Sahih al-Bukhari is the second source … and Malik narrated a hundred thousand traditions of which he selected ten thousand in al-Muwatta’, keeping then on referring them to the Book (Qur’an) and Sunnah (practical Sunnah) till sorting out only five hundred traditions (i.e. the confirmed [musnad] hadith).

550 In another narration by Ibn al-Habbab: “… and he kept on referring them to the Book and Sunnah and testing them with old traditions and akhbar till they were sifted to only five hundred traditions.