the prayer that is obligatory, and what within it is sunnah—or, as he may have put it, voluntary?” Mālik replied, “This is the speech of the heretics; put him out.”

Mansūr ibn Salamah al-Khuzāʿī said: I was with Mālik when a man said to him, “Abū ʿAbd Allah, I waited at your door for seventy days until I succeeded in writing down sixty hadiths.” Mālik exclaimed, “Sixty hadiths!” and regarded the number as excessive. The man retorted, “In Kūfa—or elsewhere in Iraq—we sometimes write sixty hadiths in a single sitting.” Mālik answered, “And what of Iraq, the mint where coins are struck by night and spent by day?”

Abū al-ʿAbbās al-Sarrāj reported: I heard al-Bukhārī say, “The soundest chain of transmission is: Mālik, from Nāfiʿ, from Ibn ʿUmar.”

Al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr writes in al-Tamhīd: I am recording this from memory, for my original copy is not with me. ʿAbd Allah al-ʿUmari, the devoted worshiper, once wrote to Mālik, urging him to withdraw from people and devote himself to private acts of worship. Mālik replied:

“Allah has apportioned deeds just as He has apportioned provision. One man finds the door of prayer opened to him but not that of fasting; another finds the door of charity opened but not that of fasting; yet another finds the door of jihad opened. Spreading knowledge is among the finest acts of righteousness, and I am content with the door that has been opened for me. I do not think that what I am engaged in is any less than what you are engaged in, and I hope that both of us are upon goodness and piety.”

Al-Ḥusayn ibn Ḥasan ibn Muhājir, the ḥadith scholar, said: I heard Abū Muṣʿab al-Zuhrī say, “After Mālik stopped attending the mosque (1), he would pray in his house, a group following his lead; and he performed the Friday prayer at home by himself.”