Al-Ḥārith ibn Miskīn said, “I heard Ibn Wahb state, ‘Had I not encountered Mālik and al-Layth, I would have gone astray.’
Hārūn ibn Saʿīd reported, “I heard Ibn Wahb speak about the discrepancies found in hadith and their various chains, whereupon he remarked, ‘Had I not met Mālik, I would have been misguided.’ (1)
Yaḥyā al-Qaṭṭān said, “Among the people no one transmits sounder hadith than Mālik; he was an imam in hadith. Yet Sufyān al-Thawrī stands above him in every respect.”
Al-Shāfiʿī related that Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan (2) said, “I stayed with Mālik for three full years and a little more, and I heard directly from him over seven hundred hadiths. Whenever Muḥammad narrated from Mālik, his house would be filled to capacity, but when he narrated from other scholars of Kufa only a handful of listeners would appear.”
Ibn Abī ʿUmar al-ʿAdanī said, “I heard al-Shāfiʿī say, ‘Mālik is my teacher; it is from him that I acquired knowledge.’”
Al-Shāfiʿī also said, “Whenever he had any doubt about a hadith, he would discard it entirely.”
Abū ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-Barr said, “Qāsim ibn Muḥammad narrated to us; Khālid ibn Saʿd narrated…”