He used to sit in his home on a floor-cushion of his own, with pillows (1) laid out to the right and left for whoever came to him from Quraysh, the Ansar, and the rest of the people.
His gathering was one of solemn dignity and forbearance (2).
It was said of him that he was a man who inspired awe, of noble bearing; in his presence there was no disputation, no clamour, and no raised voices. When strangers (3) asked him about hadith, he would answer only by relating hadith after hadith.
On occasion he would permit some of them to read to him. He had a scribe who had copied his books, a man called Ḥabīb (4). Ḥabīb would read aloud to the assembly, and no one would look into his own copy or ask for explanation, out of reverence for Mālik. If Ḥabīb made a slip while reading, Mālik would correct him—though that happened rarely (5).
Ibn Wahb said: “I heard Mālik say, ‘No one who is excessively talkative has ever prospered.’”
Harmalah reported: Ibn Wahb narrated to us that Mālik said to me, “Knowledge only decreases; it does not increase. Ever since the time of the prophets and the scriptures, knowledge has continued to diminish.”
= In his own handwriting it is stated: “The sole reason for his absence from the mosque was that he suffered from urinary incontinence. He therefore declared: It is not permissible for me to sit in the Messenger’s ﷺ mosque while I am without ritual purity, for that would be an act of disrespect.”
(1) Plural of numriqa: a cushion.
(2) Tartib al-Madarik reads: “and knowledge.”
(3) The base manuscript has the plural verb form kanu (they were); the report that follows shortly will appear with the singular kan (he was), as we have adopted.
(4) Abu Muhammad Habib b. Abi Habib, the scribe of Malik b. Anas. Imam Ahmad judged him unreliable; Ibn Main said he used to read to Malik but would hurry the session, turning two or three folios at once. Yahya added that Yahya b. Bukayr’s audition from Malik was through Habib’s reading, the worst kind of audition. Abu Dawud accused him of lying; Ibn Hibban said he transmitted fabricated material from reliable narrators; al-Nasaʾi held that all his reports—from Malik and others—are forged. Qadi Iyad, Ilmaʿ, p. 77, notes that for this reason al-Bukhari included only a handful of reports from Yahya b. Bukayr on Malik, whereas he narrated many more from him on al-Layth, because Yahya’s audition from Malik passed through Habib—something Yahya himself denied.
(5) Tartib al-Madarik, 1:153–154; Ibn Farhun, al-Intifaʾ, p. 41.