Muḥammad ibn Rumḥ said, “I saw the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—and asked, ‘O Messenger of Allah, Mālik and al-Layth differ; which of the two should I follow?’ He replied, ‘Mālik, Mālik.’ (1)

Ashhab transmitted from ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Darāwardī: “I entered the Prophet’s mosque and found him delivering a sermon. Mālik approached, and when the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, noticed him he said, ‘Come to me, come to me.’ Mālik came forward until he was close, whereupon the Prophet removed his ring from his own little finger and placed it on Mālik’s.

Muḥammad ibn Jarīr reported: al-ʿAbbās ibn al-Walīd narrated to us, and Ibrāhīm ibn Ḥammād (2) al-Zuhrī narrated to us, ‘I heard Mālik say: “Al-Mahdī said to me, ‘Set down, Abū ʿAbd Allāh, a book upon which I can oblige the entire community.’ I replied, ‘Commander of the Believers, as for this region’—and I pointed toward the West—‘you have already handled it; as for Syria, among them is the one you know,’ meaning al-Awzāʿī; ‘and as for Iraq, they are the people of Iraq.’ (3)”

Ibn Saʿd reported: Muḥammad ibn ʿUmar narrated to us: I heard Mālik say, “When al-Manṣūr came for ḥajj he summoned me. I entered, conversed with him, and he asked me questions which I answered. He then said, ‘I have resolved to order that these books of yours’—meaning the Muwaṭṭaʾ—‘be copied, that a copy be sent to every province in the Muslim realm, and that the people be commanded to act on what they contain, leaving aside whatever new learning exists besides them, for I see the root of knowledge to be the reports and scholarship of the people of Madinah.’

“I replied, ‘Commander of the Believers, do not do that. People have already received various opinions; they have heard ḥadiths and transmitted reports, and every group has adopted what reached them, acted upon it, and regarded it as their religion—stemming from the differing views of the Companions of the Messenger of Allah, peace and blessings be upon him, and others besides them. To turn them away from what they have come to believe would be extremely difficult. So leave the people to what they are upon and to what the scholars of each land have chosen.’”