the Quran, saying:

“Whoever has written down anything from me other than the Quran should erase it.”

According to the majority of scholars, this prohibition was later abrogated: he permitted 'Abd Allāh ibn 'Amr to write and said, “Write it down for Abū Shāh.” He also had a document written for 'Amr ibn Hazm. They explained that the initial prohibition arose from fear that the Quran might become confused with other material. Once that danger had passed, he permitted writing. People would thus write down portions of the hadith of the Messenger of Allah—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—and they also wrote down other material.

They did not, however, arrange this material into organized books until the generation following the Successors, when scholarly knowledge began to be compiled. The first to compile was Ibn Jurayj, who collected some material on Quranic exegesis and some on the dead. Sa'īd ibn Abī 'Arūbah, Hammād ibn Salamah, Ma'mar and others like them also compiled works, gathering under each subject reports from the Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—the Companions and the Successors. After the Quran, these were their books of jurisprudence and religious knowledge, covering foundational principles and subsidiary matters. Mālik compiled al-Muwatta’ according to this method.

Thereafter, 'Abd Allāh ibn al-Mubārak, 'Abd Allāh ibn Wahb, Wakī' ibn al-Jarrāh, 'Abd al-Rahmān ibn Mahdī, 'Abd al-Razzāq, Sa'īd ibn Mansūr and others compiled works. It was these books, recognized at that time, to which al-Shāfi'ī—may Allah have mercy on him—referred when he said:

“After the Quran, no book is more accurate than Mālik’s al-Muwatta’.”

For Mālik’s hadith are more authentic than those of his peers. Likewise, when Imām Ahmad was asked about Mālik’s hadith and his legal opinions