“…Do you not know that this is a gait which Allah detests—except when one is advancing between the two battle-lines?!’

Al-Muhallab protested, ‘Do you not recognise me?’

Mālik replied, ‘Indeed I do: your beginning was a foul drop of fluid, your end will be a putrid corpse, and in between you carry filth.’

Al-Muhallab was humbled and said, ‘Now you have truly recognised me.’

Hazm al-Qutaʿī said: We visited Mālik while he was breathing his last. He lifted his eyes and said, ‘O Allah, You know that I never loved to remain here for the sake of stomach or lust.’

It is reported that his father, Dīnār, had been taken captive in Sijistān. Al-Nasāʾī gave him the kunya Abū Yaḥyā and declared him reliable.

Jaʿfar ibn Sulaymān narrated from Mālik ibn Dīnār: ‘When the heart is without sorrow, it is ruined.’

He also said: ‘Whoever distances himself from the blossoms of this world—that person has conquered his own desires.’

Riyāḥ al-Qaysī reported that Mālik said: ‘There is no righteous deed but that a small rise stands before it. If its doer is patient, it brings him to relief; if he loses heart, he turns back.’

It is related that a thief once entered Mālik’s home but found nothing to take. Mālik called out, ‘You have found nothing of this world—would you like something of the next?’
‘Yes,’ the man replied.
Mālik said, ‘Perform ablution and pray two cycles.’
The thief did so and then sat down. Mālik went out to the mosque, and when asked, ‘Who was that man?’ he replied, ‘He came to steal, so we stole him.’

Salam al-Khawwāṣ reported that Mālik ibn Dīnār said, ‘The people of the world left it without tasting the sweetest thing in it.’
He was asked, ‘And what is that?’
He answered, ‘The knowledge of Allah, Exalted is He.’

Jaʿfar ibn Sulaymān also narrated from Mālik: ‘When the truthful hear the Qur’an recited, their hearts yearn for the Hereafter.’ Then Mālik would say, ‘Take it,’ and he would recite, adding, ‘Listen to the Word of the Truthful One from above His Throne.’

Muḥammad ibn Saʿd said: ‘Mālik was trustworthy, narrated little, and used to copy muṣḥafs.’

Jaʿfar ibn Sulaymān further related that Mālik ibn Dīnār said: ‘We—Thābit, Yazīd al-Raqāshī and I—went to Anas. He looked at us and said, “How much you resemble the Companions of Muhammad, peace and blessings be upon him; you are dearer to me…”’