dignity, calm composure, and reverent awe. Knowledge is a fine gift for the one to whom Allah grants its goodness, and it is an allotment from Allah—exalted is He. (1) Therefore do not hand yourself over to the people, for part of a man’s happiness is to be enabled to do good, while part of his misery is that he keeps on erring. It is a humiliation and a debasement of knowledge when a man speaks of it before someone who will not obey it. (2)

Al-Qaʿnabī said: I heard Mālik remark, “A man would frequent another man for thirty years, learning from him.”

ʿAbd Allah ibn Nāfiʿ said: “I kept company with Mālik for thirty-five years.”

Ibn Wahb said: “If I wished, I could fill my tablets with Mālik’s statement, ‘I do not know.’ ”

Harmalah narrated to us: Ibn Wahb told us, “I heard Mālik say, ‘This kind of disputation has nothing to do with the religion.’ I also heard him say, ‘I said to the Commander of the Believers about those who debate these intractable issues: Discussion of them, O Commander of the Believers, breeds mutual hatred.’ ”

Salamah ibn Shabīb said: ʿAbd al-Razzāq narrated to us, “I heard Sufyān, Ibn Jurayj, Mālik, and Ibn ʿUyaynah—all of them—declare: ‘Faith is word and deed; it increases and decreases.’ ”

Makhlad ibn Khidāsh said: “I asked Mālik about chess. He said, ‘Is it truth?’ I replied, ‘No.’ He then recited, ‘So what is there after truth except error?’ (Qur’an 10:32).”

Ibn Wahb said: “I performed the pilgrimage in the year 148 AH, and a herald was calling out, ‘No one is to give legal verdicts to the people except Mālik ibn Anas and Ibn al-Mājishūn.’ ”