There is a difference of opinion concerning Mālik’s genealogy (1).

While everyone agrees that he was an Arab of the clan of al-Aṣbaḥ, some have traced his most remote ancestor as ʿAwf b. Mālik b. Zayd b. ʿĀmir b. Rabīʿah b. Nabit b. Mālik b. Zayd b. Kahlan b. Sabaʾ b. Yashjub b. Yaʿrub b. Qaḥṭān—the forefather to whom all the tribes of Yemen ultimately return.

Nor is there any dispute that the Aṣbaḥīs belong to Himyar, and that Himyar itself descends from Qaḥṭān.

Now, the next name in his well-known lineage is said to be Ghaymān—spelled with a ghayn, ending with the final letter nūn, according to the predominant version.

Others have asserted that it is ʿUthmān in its regular form, but this is unsound.

Ibn Saʿd and others maintained that it is Khuthayl—spelled with a khāʾ followed by a thāʾ.

Ismāʿīl b. Abī Uways and al-Dāraquṭnī held that it is Juthayl—spelled with a jīm followed by a thāʾ.

Still others have said Ḥanbal, while yet others offered Ḥisl; both are the result of scribal errors.

Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ observed: “There is considerable disagreement over the lineage of Dhū Aṣbaḥ.”

His Birth

It was stated earlier that he was born in the year 93 AH; this was the view of Yaḥyā b. Bukayr and others.

A second view places it in 94 AH; this was held by Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbd al-Ḥakam, ʿUmārah b. Wathīmah, and others.

A third opinion says 97 AH, but that is anomalous.

Khalīfah b. Khayyāṭ and Ismāʿīl b. Abī Uways affirmed that Dhū Aṣbaḥ is of Himyarite stock.

Ibn Isḥāq is reported to have claimed that Mālik and his household were clients (mawālī) of Banū Taym. He was mistaken, and that error was the principal reason Imām Mālik rejected his narrations and criticized him.

Mālik himself was an authority in evaluating transmitters—possessed of a prodigious memory, painstaking, and precise.

Bishr b. ʿUmar al-Zahrānī said: “I asked Mālik about a certain man, and he replied, ‘Have you seen him …’”