the Muwaṭṭaʾ of Abū Muṣʿab and the Muwaṭṭaʾ of Aḥmad ibn Ismāʿīl al-Sahmī. Between the two there are roughly one hundred additional hadiths, and they are the last versions of the Muwaṭṭaʾ to reach us from Mālik.
This shows that Mālik kept augmenting the Muwaṭṭaʾ from time to time—adding reports he had previously overlooked and then confirming them. Such is the habit of scholars, may Allah have mercy on them.
Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr said, “Abū Muṣʿab died in 241 AH.” That is his statement.
Al-Zubayr ibn Bakkār held that he passed away in the month of Ramadan, 242 AH, while still serving as judge, at the age of ninety-two.
Abū al-Hasan al-Dāraquṭnī said, “Abū Muṣʿab is reliable in the Muwaṭṭaʾ, and I give him precedence over Yaḥyā ibn Bukayr.”
Abū Isḥāq, in his Tabaqāt, wrote: “Abū Muṣʿab was among the most knowledgeable people of Medina.”
It is related that he once declared, “People of Medina, you will continue to prevail over the folk of Iraq as long as I remain alive among you.”
I (al-Dhahabī) say: I heard his Muwaṭṭaʾ from Abū al-Faḍl Aḥmad ibn Hibat Allah ibn Tāj al-Umanaʾ in 695 AH, except for an old gap—the chapters on musāqāh (share-cropping) and qirāḍ (silent partnership)—which reached me by his ijāza through al-Muʾayyad al-Ṭūsī.
He said: “Hibat Allah ibn Sahl al-Sayyidī informed us; Abū ʿUthmān al-Buḥayrī informed us; Zāhir ibn Aḥmad al-Sarakhṣī informed us; Ibrāhīm ibn ʿAbd Allah al-Hāshimī informed us; Abū Muṣʿab al-Zuhrī informed us, from Mālik.”
Ismāʿīl ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Mardāwī informed us; ʿAbd Allah ibn Aḥmad the jurist informed us; Aḥmad ibn Isḥāq informed us; Muḥammad ibn Abī al-Qāsim the Qurʾānic exegete, Muḥammad ibn Ibrāhīm al-Maghāzilī, ʿUmar ibn Baraka, and al-Anjab ibn Abī