Al-Shafiʿi said, “Whenever hadith are mentioned, Mālik is the lodestar.” He also said, “Whoever seeks hadith is dependent on Mālik.” (1)

His merits are beyond counting, and the commendations of the leading imams exceed what can be gathered in this brief space.

Abū Muṣʿab reported: “I heard Mālik say, ‘I did not give legal rulings until seventy scholars testified that I was qualified to do so.’” (2)

Whenever he intended to relate hadith, he would cleanse himself, apply perfume, comb his beard, and put on his finest clothes. He dressed elegantly, and the inscription on his signet ring read, “Allah is sufficient for me, and He is the best Guardian.”

When entering his house he would say, “As Allah wills; there is no power except with Allah.” His home was spread with all kinds of carpets. From the time Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allah ibn al-Ḥasan launched his uprising, Mālik stayed inside his house and would visit no one, whether for condolences or congratulations,

so much so that it was said he would not go out even for Jumuʿah or the congregational prayer. He used to remark, “Not everything that is known should be spoken, and not everyone is able to offer an excuse.”

When death approached he declared, “I bear witness that there is no god but Allah and that Muḥammad is the Messenger of Allah,” and then he kept repeating, “The command belongs to Allah before and after” (Q 30:4).

He died on the night of the fourteenth of Ṣafar; some say on the fourteenth of Rabīʿ al-Awwal of that same year, at the age of eighty-five. Al-Wāqidī said he reached ninety, (3) and he was buried in al-Baqīʿ.

Al-Tirmidhī (4) narrated, through Sufyān ibn ʿUyaynah, from Ibn Jurayj, from Abū al-Zubayr, from Abū Ṣāliḥ, from Abū Hurayrah, the report: “A time is coming when people will spur their camels in search of knowledge, yet they will find no one more knowledgeable than the Scholar of Madinah.” (5)

Al-Tirmidhī then said, “This is a ḥasan hadith, and it is the narration of Ibn ʿUyaynah.”

It is related that Ibn ʿUyaynah was asked, “Who is the Scholar of Madinah?” He replied, “Mālik ibn Anas.” ʿAbd al-Razzāq said the same, while another report from Ibn ʿUyaynah identifies him as ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz ibn ʿAbd Allah al-ʿUmarī, a descendant of ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb.

Ibn Khallikān devoted a lengthy entry to him in Wafayāt al-Aʿyān, replete with valuable information. (6)

Then came the year 180 AH. In it a fierce conflict broke out in Syria between the Nizārīs and the Yemenites. Hārūn al-Rashīd was alarmed, so he sent Jaʿfar al-Barmakī to Syria at the head of a contingent of commanders and troops. When he entered the region the people submitted to him, and Jaʿfar did not leave in Syria a single horse or