as well as the validity of contracts, sales, and other transactions. They are also the ones to whom people turn in matters of religion and concerning the obligations of prayer, zakat, and fasting, as well as what is lawful and unlawful. Beyond all this, they are spared the attendant liabilities and enjoy favor among every class of society.

Knowledge is an office from which its holder can never be dismissed, and whoever wears its adornment is never stripped of its beauty. Every holder of office—however lofty it may be and however great his dignity—will, if he leaves his office or departs his town, find himself stripped of prestige and bereft of standing. The possessor of knowledge is the sole exception: his prestige accompanies him wherever he goes, precedes him to every region and land, and endures after him throughout all succeeding ages.

The Finest Branch of Knowledge Is Sacred Law

The finest branch of knowledge is sacred law. The best course in this field, for one granted success, is to perfect his recitation of the Quran, memorize the hadiths of the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—and distinguish the sound from the unsound. He should then study the principles of jurisprudence, thereby gaining a deep understanding of the Quran and Sunnah. Thereafter, he should study the writings of the jurists and the legal questions transmitted from the scholars, and become well trained in methods of reasoning and in assessing the soundness of proofs and arguments. This is the utmost goal and the highest degree.

Gaining Understanding of the Religion

Whoever falls short of this should, after memorizing the Quran and learning the transmission of hadith, study legal questions according to the school of Mālik—may Allah have mercy on him. When studied on their own, these are more beneficial than anything else pursued independently for gaining an understanding of jurisprudence. We have singled out the school of Mālik—may Allah have mercy on him—because he was a foremost authority in both hadith and juristic reasoning. No other scholar whose school became extensive and whose answers to legal questions were numerous attained the rank of imam in both fields. He is rivalled in the abundance of legal questions and their derivative branches, and in the treatment of their meanings and foundations, only by Abū Hanīfa