164 – Mālik ibn Dīnār (4)

A luminary among the righteous scholars, he is counted among the reliable transmitters of the Tābiʿīn and was one of the distinguished copyists of Qurʾān manuscripts—copying muṣḥafs was the livelihood that sufficed him.

He was born during the lifetime of Ibn ʿAbbās.

He heard ḥadith from Anas ibn Mālik and those who came after him, and he transmitted from Anas as well.

He also narrated from al-Aḥnaf ibn Qays, Saʿīd ibn Jubayr, al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, Muḥammad ibn Sīrīn, al-Qāsim ibn Muḥammad, and several others.

Among those who reported from him are Saʿīd ibn Abī ʿArūbah, ʿAbd Allāh ibn Shawdhāb, Hammām ibn Yaḥyā, Abān ibn Yazīd al-ʿAṭṭār, ʿAbd al-Salām ibn Ḥarb, al-Ḥārith ibn Wajīh, and a group besides them. Even so, he is not regarded as one of the foremost pillars of transmission.

Al-Nasāʾī and others declared him trustworthy. Al-Bukhārī cited his reports as corroboration, and his ḥadiths rank at the level of ḥasan.

ʿAlī ibn al-Madīnī said: “He has about forty ḥadiths.”

Jaʿfar ibn Sulaymān said: I heard Mālik ibn Dīnār say, “I wish my provision were contained in a single pebble that I could keep sucking on, seeking nothing else until I die.”

He also said, “Since I came to know people I have neither rejoiced at their praise nor disliked their censure, for the one who praises them is excessive and the one who blames them is excessive. When a scholar learns knowledge in order to act upon it, it humbles him; but when he learns it for anything other than action, it only increases his pride.”

Al-Aṣmaʿī narrated from his father: “Al-Muhallab once passed by Mālik ibn Dīnār strutting proudly, so Mālik said…"