“Security for him in the suburb; then return him to Cordoba.” (1)

ʿAbd Allah ibn Muḥammad ibn Jaʿfar said: “I once saw Yaḥyā ibn Yaḥyā dismounting from his animal and walking to the congregational mosque on a Friday, a turban on his head and a sturdy cloak around him, while I stood holding my father’s mount. (2)

The ḥāfiẓ Abū l-Qāsim Ibn Bashkuwāl (3) remarked: “Yaḥyā ibn Yaḥyā’s supplications were answered. He deliberately modeled his appearance and his manner of sitting after that of Imam Mālik in al-Andalus. The post of chief judge was offered to him, but he refused it. After that the emir of al-Andalus would appoint no one as judge in the cities of the Andalusian province unless Yaḥyā ibn Yaḥyā recommended him. Consequently, Yaḥyā’s pupils became numerous; they devoted themselves to Mālik’s jurisprudence and set aside everything else. (4)

More than one authority records that Yaḥyā ibn Yaḥyā died in the month of Rajab, in the year 234 AH. Others say it was in 233, (5) but the first date is the sounder.

We received the text of the Muwaṭṭaʾ through the venerable, long-lived imam and leading transmitter of the Maghreb, Abū Muḥammad ʿAbd Allah ibn Muḥammad ibn Hārūn al-Ṭāʾī (6), by written correspondence from the city of Tunis. He said: “He informed us…"