and recognize their true standing. You will find no one who belittles their views and schools of thought except someone who is not counted among the leading scholars. This is because they know that Mālik is the upholder of the school of Medina—a fact even more evident to scholars and laypeople than the superiority of the Medinan school over those of other cities.

His Muwatta’ is filled with hadiths transmitted by the people of Medina; matters on which they agreed, whether in earlier or later times; and questions disputed among the people of Medina and others, concerning which he selects a view and says, “This is the best view I have heard.” There are also reports well known to the scholars of Medina. Even supposing that, in earlier times, someone adhered more closely than Mālik to the school of Medina, that is no longer the case.

We do not deny that some people initially criticized Mālik for departing from their hadiths on certain questions. For example, it is related that ‘Abd al-‘Azīz al-Darāwardī said to him, concerning the determination of the minimum bridal gift by reference to the threshold for the prescribed punishment for theft: “You have turned Iraqi, Abū ‘Abd Allāh!” That is, on this question he had adopted the position of the scholars of Iraq, who set the minimum bridal gift at the threshold for the prescribed punishment for theft. However, according to Abū Hanīfa and his companions, that threshold is ten dirhams, whereas according to Mālik, al-Shāfi‘ī and Ahmad, it is three dirhams or a quarter of a dinar, as established in authentic hadiths.

The response is, first: an account such as this indicates that the scholars of Medina considered the positions of the scholars of Iraq weak, and that they disliked anyone agreeing with them.