?–795 CE · Jurist of Medina; founder of the Maliki legal school
Malik ibn Anas
Al-Muwatta' is something different in kind both from earlier undocumented practice and from the later canonical Hadith genre: hadith, Companion opinion, and Medinan communal practice interwoven without insisting every ruling be backed by a formal chain of transmission. The Maliki school that grew from Malik's teaching developed out of Medina, a smaller and more socially continuous community closer to the Hijazi practice of the Prophet's own lifetime, in contrast to the more urbanised, ethnically mixed environment of Kufa that shaped the Hanafi school.
Content referencing this person
- Research Paper
Islam: History, Authority and the Development of Islamic Tradition
A historical-critical review of the Qur'an and Hadith as sources of religious authority in Islam, distinguishing established fact, scholarly consensus, majority and minority opinion, disputed claims, and theological interpretation at every step.
- Article
Islam: A Reader's Guide to the Qur'an, Hadith and Early Islamic History
A plain-language companion to Revert Way's academic review of the Qur'an and Hadith: the same evidence, sources, and arguments, with every technical term and historical figure introduced on first use.