Ibn Wahb reported from Mālik, who said:
“It has reached me that whenever a person turns away from the world and acts with piety, wisdom flows from his tongue.”
Ibn Wahb also narrated from Mālik, who said:
“When a man sets about praising himself, his majesty disappears.”
Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal said: ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Mahdī narrated to us from Mālik, who said, “To prescribe a fixed time-limit for wiping (over footwear in ablution) is an innovation (1).”
ʿAbd al-Raḥmān ibn Abī Ḥātim said: Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam narrated to us:
I heard al-Shāfiʿī say, “Mālik and Abū Yūsuf met with the Commander of the Believers, and they discussed endowments and the property that people set aside as ḥabs. Yaʿqūb (Abū Yūsuf) said, ‘This is invalid.’ Shurayḥ remarked, ‘Muḥammad ﷺ came with the unrestricted release of such ḥabs (2).’ Mālik replied, ‘He only released what they used to dedicate to their idols—the bahīrah and the sāʾibah (3); as for charitable endowments, they originate with the endowment of ʿUmar.’”
(1) The majority of scholars, beginning with the Companions and those who followed them, hold that wiping over leather socks (khuff) is limited to a specific period: for a resident, one day and one night, and for a traveller, three days and their nights. This is based on the hadith of Ali reported in Sahih Muslim (no. 276, Book of Purification, chapter on the time limit for wiping over the khuff), and also recorded by Ahmad 1/96, 100, 113, 117, 118, 120, 149; al-Nasa’i 1/84; Ibn Majah 552; al-Shafi‘i 1/32; al-Daraqutni 1/71; al-Bayhaqi 1/28; and Ibn Hibban, Sahih 184—all with a chain that is at least hasan, some of them sahih. Malik’s contrary opinion—that there is no time limit—is attributed to Umar, Uthman and Aisha, as cited in al-Baghawi’s Sharh al-Sunnah 1/462 (our edition). Supporters of Malik’s view appeal to the report collected by Abu Dawud 157 and al-Tirmidhi 95 (the latter grading it hasan sahih) from Khuzaima b. Thabit, in which the Prophet said: “For a traveller, wiping over the khuff lasts three days; for a resident, one day,” and Khuzaima added, “Had we asked him for more, he would have given us more.” Ibn Majah’s wording (553) adds: “Had the questioner continued up to five, he would have made it five.” This reasoning is rejected on the ground that it rests on the narrator’s supposition; legal authority is established by the Prophet’s own words, not by what a narrator imagines he might have said.
(2) Al-Azhari explains that the term ḥabs (pl. ḥubs) denotes any property whose owner has made it a perpetual charitable endowment (waqf), so that it can neither be inherited nor sold, whether land, date-palm groves, vineyards, or other income-generating assets.
(3) A sa’iba was a she-camel which, after bearing ten consecutive offspring, was set free: no one might ride it or drink its milk except its own young, or …