Mohammad Badawy – The Legendary Imam Malik
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AI: Transcript ©
We begin the name of Allah and send
peace and blessings upon the prophet Muhammad
and his wives and his family members and
his companions
and all those who tread their paths until
they judgment asking Allah to make us amongst
them.
So,
before we begin with our next personality
before we begin with our next personality in
Islamic history,
as we said last week, we started this
series of
legends of Islamic history.
Great personalities
throughout Islamic history that we can
take as role models that we need to
take as role models besides, of course, the
prophets
and the companions themselves,
and.
So these are other
individuals throughout Islamic history.
There'll be men and women
who are
who who had their who who left their
footprint
in
the Islamic legacy
of manners and piety
and knowledge and so on and so forth.
So last week, we covered who?
Who's our subject last week?
Good. What was his real name?
Naman
So this is Abu Hanifa as he's more
famously known.
And,
try to retain as much as you can.
You know, there's,
you know, the the you're not going to
be required to regardless, say, all the knowledge
of you know? But you should know as
much of it as you can. You should
try to retain as much of it as
you can, especially for the exam. Right?
Maybe one day there'll be a pop quiz,
and the winner will get something. You know,
the top scorer will get something.
No pressure, though. It'll be optional. So,
you know, the the the last class I
said though that there'll be a quiz or
not class, but the last gathering there, I
said that I'll I'll test the students or
the attendees
next week. It was empty.
So it's it's none no obligation. You know?
There's no pressure.
If we do a quiz, it'll be like
a random, just, you know,
multiple choice.
Top score gets a prize, but there's no
punishment. So try to retain as much as
possible for yourself first and foremost
and, and for your family. So a naw
man named Sabat He
was born in AD Hijra till 150. He
died 150. He's from the Sabine, the generation
that met the companions.
And he was from the earliest Fiqh scholars
and the pioneers in Fiqh to the extent
that Imam al Shef said,
In
Fiqh, in terms of Fiqh rulings,
jurisprudence as it's translated, which means like rulings
having to deal with your actions.
And Fiqh, in general, is the subject of
5
categories.
Farud,
Mustahad,
Mubah,
mukruel, and haram.
Sheikh deals with these 5 rulings as it
pertains to all actions,
transactions,
relationships,
you name it. Any anywhere you have these
5 rulings, this is Sheikh.
Right? So wajib or fard is what we
have to do. Right? Mustahab is recommended. If
you leave it, there's no punishment. If you
do it, there's a reward. While wajib, if
you do it, there's a reward. And if
you leave
it, there's punishment. Right? It's wajib. It's obligatory.
Mustahab, if you leave it, there's no consequence.
If you do it, there's extra reward, so
it's an extra action. Mubah, there's no punishment
or reward. Right? Drinking water.
Is it rewardable or punishable? In and of
itself, no. With the intention, could change. Time
and place could change. Right? Drinking water in
Ramadan comes home, so on and so forth.
And,
that
is you get reward for leaving it, but
no punishment for doing it. It just disliked,
disrecommended. It could lead to worse things if
you insist on it or make it regular
practice.
And then haram, as you know, you get
punished for doing it and rewarded for leaving
it. So, anyway, we have these 5 rulings,
that's.
If you open the books now, there's. If
you open the books now, there's.
Of everything. Right? These five rulings that they
pertain
to every subject in our lives.
So he was one of the first person
to first people. He was perhaps the first
person to make a book like that, where
he has the actions and chapters and doing
rulings. So for that reason, Sheikh Aizdoy said
that he was a pioneer, and everyone who
came after all the scholars, meaning who came
after Anfiqh, are dependent upon him, meaning he
laid the foundations for them. So that was
Abu Hanifa. Just the reason why I'm mentioning
him again now, raham Allah, is because we
I want to mention a few more snapshots
of his worship that we didn't get to
cover last time very quickly before we move
on to the next personality.
It was not easy about him that he
would pray with
the wudu of Isha
for 30 years.
For 30 years straight, he would pray
with the wudu of Isha. I mean, he'll
make wudu pray Isha. What time is Isha
now?
10:15. What time is Fajj?
4:30.
So from 10:15
to 4:30, you wanna sleep
or use the bathroom. Right? And the implication
here is that he would be in
being reading the Quran until Fajr.
And what what question does that raise?
For 30 years, he prays Fajr with.
When does he sleep? Right? As everyone's wondering,
come on. You have to sleep sometime. So
his wife said about him, he would sleep
in the summertime
from after the prayer and to us.
And in the winter, his sleep would be
after Asha for a little bit, and then
he'd get up. So
after the after sunset sorry. After after the
end of the day, so he'd sleep for
a little bit then get up. So the
assumption here is that he'd pray and then
stay up after a short nap after Maghrib,
maybe an hour after Maghrib or so. And
then in the summer, it would be from
after until the last time because it was
extremely hot. So this was his sleep for
as long as his wife knew him. Right?
This was his sleep. He devoted his,
nights to the Quran and to prayer. And
he would finish the Quran as the prophet
recommended the bare minimum
every 3 days. So that's roughly around 200
pages per day. Right? So 1 third of
the Quran every day, and the prophet recommended
that no one finishes it quicker than this
because it's unlikely that someone will focus or
understand much
if he reads it faster than that. And
it was also narrated by him that he
would fast daily,
every single day, except for the Haram days.
So, like, the and certain days where this
recommended fast, like, Friday by itself and whatnot.
Other than that, he'd fast almost daily for,
you know, the majority of his life. It
is also narration that he did that for
30 years as well. So he we see
that I wanted to,
as the same way that we spoke about
his debates and his logic and his studiousness,
we also wanna know that he was a
devout worshiper.
Right? That he was really devout in the
worship of Allah.
What was his job? Remember we said what
was his job?
A cloth salesman. He he he was traded
in cloth. So there's a there's a narration
that one day he hired a trader
to sell his cloth in another area. Said
you're going to this place to do business.
Take my cloth with you and sell it.
And it was a roll of expensive cloth.
So it was a long roll of expensive
cloth. He said this take this with you
and sell it in the marketplace that you're
going in the other city. But
when you go put it for sale,
make sure that everyone you present it to,
you tell them about this defect.
Some defect in the cloth. Maybe there's a
hole or whatever. He said there's a defect
in a part of the cloth.
So before you sell it, make sure you
make that known. Right? This is something that's
obligatory upon a businessman. If there's a defect
in your product, prophet said you must make
that known before you sell it. You can't
say, well, this is the best phone out
there and, like, you know, it's top of
the line and it's brand name and all
these things. Person goes home and, like, you
know, it doesn't charge, for example. Or the
the button's slightly loose. You can't say, well,
whatever. It's not a big deal. It's still
functional. Right? There's a small crack in the
corner. If he doesn't see, he doesn't see
it. It's his business. No. The prophet said
it's an obligation for you as a salesman
to show defects if you know they're there.
Right? Especially if they're especially more so if
they're fundamental to the use of the product
or whatnot. So this is what he told
the man. The man goes.
He sells the cloth,
and he comes back to Al Hanifa, and
he says the cloth, because it was expensive,
it got the roll of cloth got you
30,000 dirham, 30,000 silver coins, which is a
huge sum of wealth. It's ginormous.
It's a very,
exorbitant amount of wealth. It was a luxurious
cloth. But the first question asked him was
what? Did you tell the buyer what I
told you? And the man goes, oh, I
forgot.
Says, don't even give it to me. Go
to the nearest. Find the nearest needy person
and give it to them. Give it in
its entirety to charity. And he may have
not been obligated to do that. Right? But
he said, I don't want this money. I
don't want anything to do with it. It
is not,
you know, it it was to him, it
was not lawful for him to take because
he felt that the defect was not shown,
and he has an obligation to do that.
So there's a lot more narrations about his
debates, debates with the Khwareis, like we spoke
about, debates with the shia, debates with other
people who had different views on silk, and
there's endless stories. And all of them, like,
we already painted the picture of his quick
wit, his intellect, his ability to see each
sentence the person said
falling under one of these filk rulings that
we just briefly described, seeing if there's a
way out for somebody, not just because you
want to free them of obligations, but because
there were actually,
you know,
these
these permissions and excuses actually apply to them.
Right? And this is something that, one of
the 5th teachers said. He said that the
people who learn silk, the more they learn
silk, the more they make things easy for
people.
They find excuses for people. They find, you
know and again, these aren't the blame worthy
excuses of getting out of obligation or something,
but things that actually pertain to them that
Allah gave them concessions
for. So the conclusion is he he was
a respected pioneer of Islamic learning, Islamic scholarship,
specifically in Fiqh and in in in logic
and rhetoric.
And
his madhab is perhaps
the most practiced,
not now, but throughout Islamic history.
If we go by numbers, then perhaps it's
very likely that his med hab throughout Islamic
history was the number one practice med hab
in terms of the number of Muslims and
the countries that do it. And until today,
it's in China, it's in Turkey, it's in
Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan,
India, Pakistan, Bangladesh.
What else?
Palestine?
There there there's learning available in Palestine, Egypt,
Saudi Arabia of Hanafi filth. There's there's small
pockets of it. But in terms of majority
or the official method of the land,
these these lands have, for example, Shafi'i, Egypt
Shafi'i, Saudi Arabia is Hanbali as official method
of the land. But there are pockets of
Hanbali silk and all types of silk in
these areas as well.
So his contributions cannot be,
cannot be downplayed. And why am I emphasizing
that? Because till today from his time till
today, like we said, there's people who misunderstood
him, who misinterpreted his views,
is that they're all connected.
So anyone who denounces Abu Hanifa
or tries to lower his status
is
very you know, I won't say ignorant because
I don't know where they're coming from, but
they are very,
shallow in their knowledge. Because if anyone who
reads, you know, basic history, you'll find this
one of the earliest things in people's biographies,
like Imam Abu Hanifa or Sheikh Aramaic. You'll
find that they all are students of each
other. And there's praise about from each one
about the others,
except for, like, you know, for example, Abu
Hanifa and Ahmed because they never met, and
they were they're not different time periods. So
Abu Hanifa wouldn't praise Ahmed. Right? He died
before him. But Ahmed praised Abu Hanifa,
and Ahmed praised Malik. And he praised the
Shafi'i. And Shafi'i and Malik praised Abu Hanifa.
And Abu Hanifa praised Malik.
They knew those that were contemporaries knew each
other. They praised each other. Abu Hanifa's main
students, Abu Yusuf and Mohammed bin Haqqar Shaybani,
they were actually also teachers of Malik. And
Malik was the teacher of Al Shafi'i, and
Al Shafi'i was the teacher of Imam Muhammad.
So the Madaheb are very intertwined, very close
together. More often than not, they agree more
than they disagree in matters of.
So that was Abu Hanifa,
a small snapshot. Rahmahullah, may Allah subhanahu wa
ta'ala, and award him for the continuous contribution
of billions upon billions of people
praying,
fasting,
giving zakah, doing Hajj
according to his teachings as he understood of
the Quran and the Sunnah, the words of
Allah Subhanahu Wa Ta'ala, the teachings of his
messenger salallahu alayhi wa sallam. So may Allah
Subhanahu wa ta'ala award you on behalf of
the Muslim Ummah and allow us to take
from his great characteristics,
for our journey towards Allah
So today, we're with the second madhab. The
second chronologically.
And the founder of this madhab
was who?
Who's which is the 2nd med lev chronologically
mentioned a little earlier. So Abu Hanifa was
the first from he was born 80 hijrah.
He died in 150. So next we have
Imam Malik, and he was born in 93
after the hijra, and he died in 179,
Muhammad.
So
his name his full name was Aba Abdallah,
that is Konya, the father of Abdullah, Malik
ibn Anas ibn Abi Amir al Asahi.
So,
Imam Malik, he originates from Yemen. His some
say his grandfather, some say his great grandfather
came from Yemen and moved to the Hejaz
area, which is Arabian Peninsula, in a small
settlement near Al Madinah. So either his grandfather
came or his great grandfather, some say his
father, but either way, he was born there.
And shortly thereafter, the whole family moved closer
to Medina, so he was born and, so
he was raised and lived his entire life
in the city of the prophet Muhammad.
So his his tribe, Banu Asbah, they're originally
from Himyar, which is in Yemen near Sala'a,
and, they migrated again from there to Hejaz
to an area near Medina. So he's originally
from Himyar, which is in Yemen, but he's
called Al Madani because he was raised and
his whole life was spent in in Medina,
the city of the prophet Muhammad Sallallahu Alaihi
Wasallam. Where was Abu Hurair from?
So, Imam Malik is from
Medina. Where is Abu Hanifa from?
So originally from Afghanistan. His his grandfather
and his father were from Afghanistan. But where
where was he born and raised?
In Halakh, in Al Kufa. Specifically, in Al
Kufa. Good. So, again, let's we'll do this
every every week, try to see,
you know, who needs to get kicked out.
No. I'll try to see, if we can
retain as much as possible.
No one gets kicked out. We're getting to
that, by the way. That that's why I'm
mentioning it. So the so this is, Malik
ibn Anas
He was described as light skinned. He he
was a little bit heavy in his build,
a little bit wide, and he was bald
with a large beard and blue eyes. So
he was described as light skinned and heavy
set,
His village, like we said, was near a
Medina, close to Khaybar or between Khaybar and
Medina, and they moved to Medina shortly thereafter.
His parents were very noble. His mother and
his father had a very noble lineage. As
you know, in that time, this was a
big deal. This was something that was greatly
considered. And to be born into nobility,
you know, gave you a lot of advantages
and, opportunities. So he was very noble in
his lineage.
And it said it's possible that his grandfather,
his sorry. His great grandfather
because remember, we said either his great grandfather
came to Medina, the area near Medina, or
his grand his grandfather. Either his great grandfather's
grandfather came to Medina from Yemen. So the
people who who support the narration that says
his great grandfather came, which is, Abu Aamir
Nafaa ibn al Aslahi, they said that he
was a companion, Abu
Aamir Nafaa ibn al That he came to
Medina, and he accepted Islam in front of
the prophet himself, and that's possible. It's there's
a possibility, you know, they're not that far
off at all. If he was born 93,
that's how many years after the prophet's death.
He was born 93 Hijri. How many years
is that after the prophet's son's death?
80. Thereabout. Right? 80,
82.
So
nothing keeps you awake like math. Right? Everyone
loves math. So the so about 80 years
after processing death, so his great grandfather accepting
Islam is not far fetched at all. Right?
And others say that his grandfather came,
to Medina during the time of Omar,
And that one is for sure that his
grandfather did meet Omar and, learned with Omar
and the some of the great haba that
around at that time. Whether his great grandfather
came Abu Amr, it's possible. Who knows? But
Amr definitely came to Medina and met Amr
Al Khattab
and
he was,
he learned from her.
So
whether Abu Amr was his habib or not,
he was definitely he definitely came to Medina
and studied with the Sahaba.
And for sure,
Amir, his grandfather, came to Medina and studied
with Amr Al Khattab and the other great
Sahaba that were alive at that time,
So he was as you can see, then
he taught his Ahmed taught his grand his
father who taught him
is his father, and he's Malik. Malik gave
So
he he was born into a family of
Islamic scholarship.
Right? His grandfather, his great grandfather, and his
father had all studied with Sahaba and the
Tabi'i.
And, interestingly enough, also, the year
his name is Malik ibn Anas. Right? The
year he was born,
93 after hija, that was the same year
that Anas ibn Malik died. Anas ibn Malik
was the companion of the prophet,
one of the youngest companions and the one
of the final ones to die, and he
was a servant of the prophet for the
last,
for the last 10 years of his life,
and one of the greatest scholars of the
companions, of course. He learned a lot,
being one of the youngest, and he lived
one of the longest as well. So it's
just an interesting fact that the year Anas
and Malik died, Malik ibn Anas was born.
There's no relation between them except that their
names reverse of each other, and, and they
are both great scholars, of course.
So some of the scholars believe, you know,
he's included in the hadith where the prophet
said,
the best generation is my generation. Because the
word,
it could mean generation, and it could also
mean century.
Right? A is a century. So when they
say, that means centuries. But could also mean
generation, right, from one person to another, from
father to son. So some scholars believe that
interpretation of the hadith as well where the
prophet said the best the best is my
then the one after, then the one after.
So we have praise of the first three.
Is plural of.
So does that mean generations or that means
centuries? You'll have scholars that said both. The
language allows for both, and there's no reason
why not for either interpretation.
So if we go by the interpretation of
centuries, he's within the 1st century. Right? He
he is born 7 years before the 1st
century ends. And if we go by generations,
then he's in the 2nd century.
He's not in the
then he's in if we go by the
meaning of qaram to mean generations, then he's
in the 2nd generation. Right? Because he never
met the prophet so he's not going to
have a. But he met the people after
him, the Tabayeen. So he he he didn't
mean it's Tabayeen either. So he's not from
Tabayeen, but he met Tabayeen.
So he's in the Tabayeen,
that third generation.
So he's in the 1st century and then
the 3rd generation
after the prophet Either way, he's in the
praiseworthy
categories,
either in the first one or in the
third one.
And before he was known for
or began to get fatwa, he was known
for hadith. So his study began hadith, and
he was more well versed in hadith and
Abu Hanifa,
at the time. As you know that the
the schools of hadith are still being formed,
the study of hadith was still
relatively new. All the studies were relatively new,
but especially hadith,
took years to compile.
Because someone is in Iraq
who has certain hadith and a Sahabi maybe
or a student of Sahabi, you have to
go to him for Madinah.
It's on about months there months back. And
you wanna stay for a day and say
thank you. No. Write them down on paper.
There's no paper. There's no pen. They'd write
on skins or bones or leather.
And, you know,
the
the primary method of preservation was memorization. It
doesn't happen overnight. Right? So they'd study for
scholars sometimes for years before going back home.
So the study of hadith was being developed.
His time was more developed than the previous
time, so he was more of a hadith
scholar and more well versed in hadith. And
he gave an emphasis to hadith,
relying solely on the Hadith as opposed to
logic or trying to find pieces of argument
as Abu Hanifa is more well known for.
And it's important to mention this. I know
I said it before, and it's a little
bit, repetitive, but, you know, from the number
of people that you see attacking Abu Hanifa
or attacking his school of thought or his,
you have to defend because he is, you
know, he's not,
he's not a
he's not a target that you just let
go and say, yeah. Well, that person is
attacking. It doesn't matter. Not like the scholars
would say. We have to defend the Islamic
scholarship of the past. The love of
is something that you'll learn looking at the
biographies of the scholars, and you'll learn from
the hadith of the prophet first and foremost.
So his silk, he would take apart the
hadith and categorize it and analyze it according
to, you know, language and the analysis of
logic, but he wouldn't just pick and choose
or say I feel this or make randomly.
Have to emphasize that, have to overemphasize that,
have to repeat it. So
not to knock
Abu Hanifa's silk or his method, but
it was not a purely,
literal interpretation of a hadith. He was a
little bit more liberal in the interpretation
using logic and rhetoric. Again, not liberal in
the sense that it came from his own
mind, but in logical deduction using the hadith
and the sunnah. While Imam Malik and others
who followed his methodology
were more focusing on the hadith itself.
Take the ruling from the hadith,
extrapolate from the hadith, but don't
be too liberal in how you apply these
principles and draw these principles and use the
logic to make rulings. So these are different
approaches that existed and continue to exist till
today in the different schools of thought.
And interestingly,
his journey also started similar to Abu Hanifa
with advice from elders. So remember we said,
Abu Hanifa, that one of the scholars saw
him, and he told him, you're so busy
with the marketplaces and stuff. Why don't you
go seek knowledge? I see that you're attentive,
that you have a wakeful mind, and that
you are smart. You're an intellectual.
So similarly,
Malik was born into a family of scholars.
Right? His great grandfather, his grandfather, and his
father, all scholars that learned the Tawba and
their students.
But he himself he's saying about himself as
a young boy was not as studious. And
they started very young in school age. You
know, a few years old, 5, 6, or
so, they began to send them to the
circles of knowledge. Well, his older brother, another
one. He was very studious from an early
age. So he says, one day, our father
and us
asked us a question.
And another got it right, well, I got
it wrong.
So my father turned to me and he
said, you're distracted. The reason why you got
it wrong is because you're distracted by those
pigeons. He used to rage raise pigeons. You
know, he's a kid. Raise pigeons for fun.
So his father told him and it was
just a criticism. It wasn't like he didn't
yell at him or beat him, but he
just told him, the reason you don't know
is because you're distracted by these pigeons. So
So he says when he told me that,
it
made me want to you know, a child
wants to impress their father or or please
their father. So it made me
driven to begin to acknowledge more. You know?
He didn't want to be put in that
spot again compared to the brother and looked
down. And, the scholars say, when he began
to seek knowledge at this age, it was
around 8, 9, 10, you know, much earlier
than when does start? Remember he said about
himself, I started very late.
When was that?
22. So he started around 21, 22, and
he said that was so late. So they
had a different approach to knowledge back then
and different outlook to how important knowledge is
and when to start. So he started early,
the regular time around 8, 9, 10. So
they they say that when he started and
he'd attend the halakat, people would say, who's
that little boy? So they would say, that
is brother
Malik. Why did they say brother? Because is
older, and
was more known to study and attend the
lectures than Malik. So they think that's brother.
He's just a tag along. And in a
few years, people used to say began to
say about Anad, who is that? And they
said that's Malik's brother, Anad.
From how much he shifted, and he began
to sit in the lectures and never leave
any of them, follow the scholars door to
door, follow them day and night,
bribe their children with dates. So Medina is
known for dates. He'd come to certain scholars'
houses like, Ibn Khormuz and others who were
big,
who studied under the greatest,
who studied under the. So Ibn Khormuz, he'd
go to his house, for example, and he
would say, I'd come with
a handful of dates,
and I'd give them to his children. And
I'd tell them, if people come asking you,
where's Ibn Khormuz? Tell them Ibn Khormuz is
busy. Tell him he had a job to
do, and that's why and he's busy. Don't
come asking for him. So the kids would
say, sure. You know? Hey. They take the
dates, and when people come ask, and why
did he want them to say that so
no one else would bother him? He'd have
him all to himself, be able to ask
him to learn from him.
So he said, I would spend
every single day and as much of the
night as I can with Ibn Khormuz, and
I did this for 7 years straight.
So daily, he's at his house. And he
said, I would
and he'd also do this with Nafaa, who
was the servant of Ibn Umar. So Ibn
Umar was a companion,
so was Nafaa. And he,
he was a servant and spirit slave.
And he,
he used to narrate much hadith from the
from the prophet and he was also one
of the last companions to die. So he'd
spend days by him as well. And that's
how it was a little bit
different because he had a very sharp personality.
He wasn't,
as accommodating as others, if you will. So
his personality was the type where you couldn't
hang around it too much. Right? So these
these people have different personalities. And even, when
you look at, these biographies, you'll find some
Islamic scholars
who had stricter personalities than others,
harsher personalities than others. They were,
quicker to use their hands than others, maybe.
Right? If someone did something wrong, maybe they
would smack them, while others wouldn't. But this
is just it depends on where you're from,
when you're from. It's not, you know, there's
not one standard. And none of them, of
course, transgressed to the point where it's blameworthy
or that lowers from their status. So, Nefa,
I was one of those people. So he
says, how would I seek knowledge from him
then?
I would go to to him throughout the
day,
and I would
hop from shade to shade. You know, in
the middle of the day, the shade changes.
So this the shade of this tree would
disappear, so I'd go under another one. And
I would do this why would he do
this all day? Because you can't hand around
Nafar too much. So I'd go and ask
him a couple of questions then go away.
Then when he'd, you know, forget about me
and who I was, I'd go back and
do the same thing. And from this way,
I asked him about everything, and I always
asked him,
I want to hear Ibn Umar's opinion about
this. What did Ibn Umar teach you about
that? What was Ibn Umar's outlook on this?
Because, of course, Ibn Umar was one of
the strictest companions in terms of the sunnah
and the Hadith of the prophet sallallahu alaihi
wa sallam. He was he held very tightly
to it, and he was, you know, one
of the greatest
Sahaba who gave Fata'wah from the Hadith of
the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam.
And this is what gave rise to the
golden chain. They call it or
The golden chain is Malik,
An Nafah,
and Ibn Umar and Rasoolullah
So as you know, that's how hadith works.
Right? Chain of narration. I say something,
then you hear it. You give it to
someone else. That's a chain of narration. Right?
It passes down. Then you go to someone
saying, Mohammed said this, and they pass it
down. So the way hadith works is that
they analyze these chains. Who was Mohammed? Was
he trustworthy? Was he a liar? Was he
known to was he known for bad memory
or mistakes as he got older? What was
who were his teachers? They know the biographies
of everyone. If they don't know the biography
of 1 person in a chain of 50,
for example,
the hadith gets lowered.
And depending on what they don't know about
him or what they know about him, the
hadith can climb or drop in its authenticity.
That's how authenticity works in a very, you
know, constricted,
very concise,
explanation.
So what does it mean the golden chains?
Meaning one of the best chains in a
hadith, and Bukhari said this is the best
chain. If you have a hadith that starts
Malik,
An Nafaa, and Ibn Umar,
that is a good that hadith is authentic.
You don't need to do any more work
because, of course, Imam Malik is known, and
Nafaa and Ibn Umar are companions. So there's
no need nothing need more needs to be
said, and ibn Umar got it from the
prophet,
and it's also praised because of its shortness.
How many people are in it before the
prophet, SAW, SAW, and?
3. Right? Malik, An Nafaa, and ibn Umar.
Malik reported this hadith, which he learned from
Nafaa, which Nafaa learned from
which Ibn Umar heard from the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam. So the shortness is better.
Have you ever played the telephone game? Right?
Or they call it cat whispers or something
something like that? Whisperers? Just whispers?
Whispers on the island? I love going to
different places and do is that what you
said?
Whisper is
whisper is down the eye alley. Alley. Okay.
I love going to different places. Everyone has
a different name for it.
But who who's familiar with the game?
Right? I tell Nizam
that this water tastes like strawberries,
but I whisper in his ear. He tells
it to the brother next to him, whisper,
and whisper it till it reaches the last
person. So when it reaches the brother over
there, what was the original sentence?
This water tastes like. So by the time
it reaches him, he'll probably say something like
the message is on fire. Right? That's that's
always what happens. At the end of the
game, the last person says something ridiculous.
Why is that? Because someone in the middle
has poor memory.
Someone in the middle misheard it. The way
I misheard Osman right now. I misheard him.
Right? That wasn't that wasn't intentional for me
or him. I just misheard him. And then
the third person, no one here, of course,
is just plain evil. He says, you know
what? Let me make a mess of stuff.
I'm gonna throw in, you know, random words
in there. So this game that kids play
and we see, it shows us how things
change, not over time, in one room, right,
of 10 people.
And, this is naturally how it is. So
that's why the science of hadith is so
important. But if it's 2 people, just me
telling his mom, then he says it to
everyone,
it's pretty much a 100% he'll say exactly
what I said. Right? Even if his memory
is not that well, even if he, you
know,
didn't hear it exactly, but he'll he'll he'll
most likely just get it from hearing it
once. So this is why that that chain
is is praise ready. 1, because the people
in it, and 2 is because the number
of people in it is is so short.
So,
so so far, we said his teachers were
Ibn Urmuz, and the second was Nafaa
Naula ibn Umar.
And the third one is Ibn Sha'ab, who
is also one of the great, Tavern, Mohammed
Shaib Azhuri.
And he he says about seeking out some
Ibn Shaib, we would go to his doorstep
in the morning before he comes out and
crowd it, just waiting for him to come
out and ask him about hadith and about
rulings. And he said we would crowd it
even though it was a very wide doorstep.
So from the number of people that were
on it, just waiting, and everyone's eager to
be there, to be close to hear what
he said, you know, there's no mics. There's
no you might miss a word or miss
a fatwa. So you wanna be there from
the beginning, be one of the first people.
That's how eager they were, and we would
fall on top of one another. You know,
so crowded that we were, you know,
so eager to be at the front of
the doorstep as soon as he came out
that we would fall on top of each
other. Or the way people crowd today is,
like, for, like, Black Friday or something. Right?
Because they see it as something so valuable.
I have to have this TV.
Doesn't matter if there's one exactly like Yahoo
that has no new features or has 50
new features that, you know, I can't even
pronounce it and I would probably never use.
I still need it. It's valuable. It means
a lot to me. It makes me happy.
So for them, that was knowledge. Knowledge is
what made them happy. Knowledge is what gave
them fulfillment. Knowledge is what drove them, to
wake up in the morning.
So he says one day, after, you know,
seeking knowledge of al Shehab, he would always
daily recite to us,
maximum of 30 hadith.
Right? He would not recite to us more
more than that. And I fear that they
wouldn't memorize it, that they wouldn't implement it,
that they would, seek too much knowledge
to,
too much knowledge in the sense that they're
not implementing as fast as they're learning or
they're not understanding as fast as they're learning.
That's a problem, right, when you receive too
much information.
And this is something that you see all
over with scholars in it and especially with
Chaba, that they would be very keen on
implementing what they learned, understanding what they learned,
memorizing what they learned before they moved on.
So he says, I found him one day
in the market.
So I told him, I wish to recite
to you the 30 a hadith that you
taught us yesterday,
except for 1. So Imshea told him why
not that one? What's wrong with that one?
He says, that one, I didn't I forgot
it a little bit. So when I review
it, then I'll say it to you. So
she scolded him, and he told him, your
memory is done
because you memorize 29 at 30. Tell me,
what kind of memory is this? So he
he he had very strict teachers, a very
strict standard, which we'll see, you know, influence
his teaching style. And he told him why
he's so strict on him. He said we
would go to Sayedid and Musayid and all
these other great,
the students of the Kahwa, and they would
teach us 50 to 100 hadith.
And every single one of us would go
home, and the world would stop until we
had memorized it. And we would review it
and read it and reread it until we
had memorized it.
So Imam Malik, after he heard this advice,
and he's a young man, right, in his
early probably early teens, 11, 12, 13, he
would spend all day
learning these hadith, 30, 40, 50, whatever it
was, and then he'd spend all day. He
wouldn't even go home until he had memorized
them.
And he would that was he was known
for, you know, just walking around in the
streets under the shade, trying to find shade
wherever he can, you know, to our country,
and,
just reviewing the haditha himself until he had
memorized it. And there's one narration that his
sister went to his father, and he said,
Malik is just walking around under the trees.
Like, what's he doing? Go or you know
how siblings do that? They say go go
punish him.
So, we don't know if that's her intent.
Right? She just told her father,
Malik is just walking around out and about.
What's he doing?
And so
her her her father said their father said,
leave him alone.
I know he's reviewing the hadith. That's what
he's doing. That's what he does outside. He
just reviews the hadith,
until that he until he memorizes them.
So he says after this incident, he goes
back to to to studying with Ibn Shehab
now, another one of his teachers, and,
Ijeb had taught him 4 the hadith. He
recited him in that gathering, 40 hadith.
So he tells him,
if you can memorize these 40,
you'll be a great imam.
Memorize these 40, not just memorize them. When
they said memorize, they mean encompass them, implement
them, live by them. So he tells them,
if you do that, you'll be a great
imam. So he told him, let me recite
them to you.
He just told him, go memorize these, and
you'll be a great imam. He says, I'm
ready. Right there on the same spot. Right?
This is when he had learned a little
bit. So he told him, you know, right
right now, you're you're gonna recite them right
now. So he recited to him all 40
of them with their chains of narration.
And most are
not 3 people in the chain. It's not
It's like, sometimes it's 15 people, 10 people,
20 more. So he told them told them
all the hadith, all 40 of them with
the chain. So he told him,
You are an excellent
reservoir for this knowledge.
It's good for this knowledge to be with
you. Right? He's encouraging him. So last time
he criticized him for forgetting, but this time
he's telling him,
knowledge
you're a good container for this knowledge. You're
a good place for it to establish itself,
for it to to settle.
And so from then on, he became a
well known scholar of hadith very early in
age. It's reported about him. He would sit
and lead his own halakat and hadith,
his own teaching of hadith when he was
20 years old.
So from the age of around 8, 9,
10 till 20, he's learning, and he begins
to teach himself
teach others like himself in the masjid around
the age of 20, 21.
Right? So
at that age,
others were praising him left and right and
said, this is a huge scholar. This is
a scholar of a hadith. Go listen from
Malik, the hadith he has collected. He's known
to be a collector of the sunnah and
a caretaker of the hadith of the prophet
And the sheikh Irhamallahu who's a student says
about him,
When you would come when it comes to
us narration,
then Malik is our star.
What does this mean? It's a reference to
the a of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala
nah, where he says,
and with the stars they are guided.
Not meaning astrology and all this mumbo jumbo
that people do today, meaning
finding direction. Right? Till today, some people use
the stars to find direction. Right? The north
star and all these things to find, to
navigate. So Allah says the end one of
his signs, one of his miracles is that
they use the stars for navigation.
So Sheikh is saying in terms of a
hadith,
narrations from others, we navigate
between them using manic. He's the one who
tells us this is authentic. This is not.
Take from this. Don't take from that.
And and a student came to remember Ahmed
now,
and he asked him, I want to start
memorizing memorizing a hadith. Where do I begin?
He told him,
Begin. Memorize you wanna memorize hadith? Then memorize
the hadith Malik has collected. That's the best
collection that you have available before you. This
is before Bukhari. Right? All this is before
Bukhari's collection. But even after Bukhari's collection came
out, you know, around
80 or so years after this, people still
held the Muwata, which is Malik's collection of
hadith,
still considered it some people still considered it
more
reliable as a hadith source than that of
Bukhari. Of course, today, Bukhari has taken center
stage, and, his his book, Ramallah, is is
the most famous in the hadith.
Another one of his teachers, inshallah, we'll mention
2 more quickly, was Jafar as Sadiq. Who's
Jafar as Sadiq?
Say it again.
No? Ma'am Shafi'i is Mohammed.
Shafi'i will cover him next week.
K.
Yes. So he's a 50 member for the
shia. Why? Because he is the great great
great grandson of the prophet Muhammad SAW. So
he's the great great great grandson of the
prophet Muhammad SAW.
And
so he's
the 4th generation
4th or 5th generation after the prophet sallallahu
alaihi wa sallam. Right? So his his great
great grandfather was Ali
and his great grandfather was Al Hassan. Alright.
Al Hussein. Sorry.
So this is the he was also one
of his teachers, and he was also one
of the teachers of Abu Hanifa
as well. So they both had Jafar as
Sadiq as one of the teachers.
And on, one more teacher that he so
these teachers are primarily in hadith. But he
took all knowledge from them. And his one
of his main teachers of was,
Imam Al Rabia. And he was known as
Rabia. Rabia is the one who uses, you
know, logic or
rhetoric.
And he was his main teacher
for, you know, his early in life. But
later on in life, as he became a
bigger hadith scholar and, was more,
prone to relying on the hadith over logic
and rhetoric for rulings, he,
stopped, you know, attending the the gatherings of
Rabia, and he was more, you know, leaning
on leaning on the hadith for rulings. So
these are his main teaching main teachers along
with also there's another one who he shares
with Imam Ahmed and as Bish al Haqi.
So Bish al Haqi was a very well
known hadith as well that he was of
the teachers of Imam Malik. So they're his
main teachers growing up as a student of
knowledge. Like we said, when he reached around
2021, he began to hold his own classes
and was considered a great scholar by,
his contemporaries and his teachers as well.
As so these are just a few of
his teachers,
5 or 6 of them that we mentioned.
As for his students,
they're countless.
You know, if you check the books of
of
of biographies and things like that, they will
tell you his students could not be counted,
literally.
Because he would teach all day and the
message was full from day to night. If
one group left, another group would come.
If he would go when he would go
to Mecca, he never he lived in Medina
his whole life. He would only leave for
Hajj al Umrah.
And they would say when he goes to
Mecca,
the will become crowded.
People just make the mataaf with him just
to watch him how he makes tawaf and
to ask him questions.
And it was narrated by other contemporaries like
Bish, Al Hafi, and others that when they
would make tawaf, they would tell people this
is time for my worship. No questions. Don't
follow me. Let me make tawaf by myself.
But let them, and it was said that
when he would come make dua, it would
become crowded. Back then, it was only crowded.
You know? It was rarely ever crowded. Not
like today where, you know, the has grown
and the ability to travel to Mecca has
become easier and whatnot.
And then,
he says that in his book that when
you if we consider the famous students that
he had, those that grew to be well
known and have their own students, like, for
example, then they would number they number around
1,000.
And we know their names, and they're collected.
So 1,000 of his students that are well
known. And for the ones who are not
well known, who didn't become famous, then they
cannot even be counted. His halakat were always
full, and the masjid was always full,
of people following his his classes.
As chef
himself as a young man, I came to
Malik's house, and I found outside a couple
of
fancy
Arabian horses
and a couple of mules from Khorasan. And
the mules of Khorasan were known to be
strong
Khorasan, which is modern day Iran, which can
they they are known to be strong and
can carry heavy burdens.
So I when I saw them, I said,
how, you know, how beautiful these things are.
It's wealth. You know, back then, that is,
it's like, you know, coming to to someone's
house and finding a row of fancy cars
or new cars. So he told them how
these things are beautiful. You know, you got
a couple of horses, a couple of mules,
that's a decent amount of wealth. So,
he says, told me, do you like them?
You can have them. They're yours. I don't
want any of them. They came to me
as a gift from so and so in
this group of people who want to gift
me, and you can have all of them.
So, madam, he said, like, how can I
do that? What are you gonna ride? How
are you gonna get around if every horse
you've been gifted or mule you've been gifted,
you give to me? So he told him,
I have vowed that I will never ride
an animal in the city of the prophet,
Muhammad, alaihis salaam. Right? Because riding an animal,
just like driving a car, is higher class
than walking, right, or riding a bike. It
shows that you can afford that you're of
a certain nobility or a certain status. So
he said, I will vow never to ride
an animal within the city of the prophet,
Muhammad,
thou only walk
out of humility and out of respect and
reverence for the prophet Muhammad, and this was
something he adopted from his teachers about Jafar
as Sadiq, for example, the great great great
grandson of the prophet Muhammad,
It was narrated that he was a hardy
person. He loved to laugh. He was. He
joked, and he was very lively.
And but when the when the name of
the prophet was mentioned, his face would change
color, and he'd stop speaking. He would be
unable to speak or to have that hearty
demeanor. And this is out of reverence and
love that they had for the prophet
Bishop Hafi as well, who was a teacher,
that he was once he's, he's seen Imam
Malik was with him when he was at
the well of Zamzam, and people were asking
questions.
And he had left him. He felt, you
know, he had a very high standard of
who he'd ask questions or come to. So
he didn't approach him as the other people
were approaching him. And he was at the
will of Zanzib, he said. And and he
when he was asked about the,
prophet he
became very clammy. Right? He was very nervous
to speak. So he says when he saw
that from Bish al Khafi, that's when he
became,
more keen on seeking knowledge from him. He
looked for that reverence because the prophet was
a big deal to them. It wasn't just
a name. It wasn't just a concept.
It was
the most beloved person to them. Right? This
is where this this person
his teachings, his way of life, his family,
all of this meant the world and everything
in it to them, so they took it
as as such.
So this was by far
maybe his most,
he is most famous for this quality. Right?
We said, Abu Hanifa with his logic and
his debates. Imam Malik, his reverence for the
prophet you'll find endless narrations.
It was narrated that when he would teach
his students,
he began in the 1st few years narrating
the Muwaddah to them. The Muwaddah is his
collection of hadith around, I believe, 1500 or
so narrations.
Not all of them are hadith, and there's
others that are from companions of other people.
I believe they're around 1500. I could be
mistaken.
And, he would spend the the first few
years, he would narrate them to the people.
He'd say, this is my collection of hadith
that was called,
and he'd narrate to them. After a few
years, he stopped narrating altogether because enough people
that memorized it that they would now narrate
to him. So if you wanna come memorize
it, he'll tell you, come sit in the
gathering. These people reciting it all day, and
I'm correcting them. So that's where you'll hear
it. He himself stopped stopped narrating it, and
he would be very, very picky, very stingy
in how much he'd narrate in the day.
He wouldn't you know, and remember, he learned
that from his teachers. He wouldn't wanna be
frivolous with the words of the prophet Muhammad
They're not just something you quote and you
use freely. And when he's seen people debating
in the Hadith al prophet using them for
debate, remember we said that about how
he displays that. He was a he used
to debate as well. He wouldn't like debates
within the deen. People using the deen against
one another to condemn one another, to attack
one another. That's not why the deen was
revealed. So hadith hadith,
one back another, and he told them this
is not what the deen of Islam is.
That's not what Islam teaches us, to condemn
one another, to attack one another, even over
positions in faith.
He would not entertain them, and he would
not allow them to happen in front of
them, and he would most likely kick these
people out. So So he had a very
strict,
reverence for knowledge for the Hadith of the
prophet, and he would not allow that to
be disrespected in his masjid. So if people
did that, and his main narration is where
he'd have them, kicked out. Sometimes other people
would strike them, and he he did this.
Again, it was a different time and a
different situation. We're not saying bring that back
and, you know, Nizam starts hitting the people
who are nodding off. No. No. No. We're
not gonna do that. But
what we do have to bring back and
learn from this is the reverence
and the respect
for knowledge and real ulema.
This isn't a game. Right? This is not
they the the scholars would say that this
is
right? It's it's narrations
on behalf of Allah. You're speaking on the
behalf of Allah and his message
It's not a game, and they took it
very seriously.
So
when they would recite and walk it back
to him, he would tell them he would
tell the person who's reciting, lower
your voice. Don't say the hadith of like
you're talking in a normal voice, like you're
reading a book. You say say it in
a very soft voice
because
the that his,
his reverence, his sanctity
while he's
dead is the same as when he was
alive.
And when he was alive, Allah revealed to
us in Surat Surat Surat to lower your
voices when you're speaking to the prophet Right?
Let the father,
and the Rasulullah. Right? Don't don't hire your
voices. Don't speak in loud tones. Don't speak
to him. Don't call him. Don't name him
the way that you do to each other.
He's the messenger of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala.
If you're gonna speak to him, you're gonna
say Rasulullah or Nabi'Allahi. You don't call him
by his name. And when you speak to
him or in his presence or when he's
talking when he's talking, you're quiet and you
listen. Or when you're speaking to him or
in his presence and then you lower your
voices. This is the command directly from Allah.
He says,
Allah says, don't hire voices
in the presence of the messenger of Allah
and don't speak to him the the way
you speak to each other in loud voices.
Perhaps your actions will be nullified and you
don't even notice. Because this disrespect,
this,
audacity to address in the way you choose
others will nullify your actions. It's cooked.
That's not the bare minimum respect that you're
commanded to show him,
And there's also a narrative of him when
he'd hold these hadith gatherings. He would come
out
wearing the best of clothes
and wearing the best of perfume.
And he would pay to have people lighting
bukhoor, incense, good smell around the masjid throughout
his whole gathering, which usually would last all
day. So, you know, having people running bukhoor,
especially in that time, all day would cost
a lot of money. But he was also
a tradesman, by the way, like Abu Hanifa
in cloth. And he inherited a large sum
of money also from his noble parents, and
he had a strong tribe of nobility and
wealth.
So
he would wear very nice clothes, wear a
very nice perfume, and pay to have the
khur running the entirety of his gathering. And
this was all because of the reverence that
he was showing the Hadith of the prophet
There was one student that once asked him,
why do you not sit in the circles
of so and so, another scholar another scholar
of Hadith?
So he says, I went to seek knowledge
from him because I heard of what he
has of Hadith of the prophet
And when I came to his gathering,
I saw his students standing around him learning
a Hadith.
So he says,
I
the the
the hadith of the were too great,
too majestic for me
to ever consider taking while standing. How can
I stand and learn hadith? I gotta be
humble. I gotta be on the ground. I
have to sit down. So he said, when
I went to this gathering of so and
so, and I saw people standing taking hadith,
I said, I'm not gonna take hadith from
here.
The proper in his perspective, the respect is
not
high enough.
He didn't condemn the person. He just said,
I can't. The hadith is too great on
me to take it standing, right, to hear
it in a loud voice, to give it
the reverence to give it anything less than
the reverence that it's due.
As he got older, he would,
he he became well known, his knowledge of
a hadith, that even the rulings the rulers
began to come to him and seek knowledge
of a hadith.
The knowledge of a hadith at that time
was becoming very popular, that the average person
was interested in it. It was kind of
like a fad. Right? Even people who are
not serious students of knowledge for that time,
of course, they would still be interested in
hearing a hadith, especially a hadith that people
differed in their authenticity, differed in their meaning.
They'd love to hear these things. It was
it was a popular pastime of people. So
even the rulers got on it, and they
were interested in hearing a hadith. So they'll
narrate that a Russian,
who was one of the rulers at that
time, the the
the Khalifa,
he came to visit Medina, and he told
the people, go get Malik
to recite to us, meaning him and his
entourage, al Mu'ta. We wanna hear it. Right?
So it's popular. Even the rule again, the
rulers are interested in the hadith in that
time, even though they weren't the best of
people, some of them. So Arash said he
wasn't particularly, you know, super pious, but, again,
hadith is popular. So he tells the people
of the city, go get Malik
and have and tell him we want him
to recite to us.
So the messenger comes, and, of course, in
that time, similar to some countries today, you
don't say no to the ruler. You don't
slight against him. Right? That's not going to
end well at all.
So the man comes to me, he says,
Ar Arashid says, come to him and his,
his entourage here in Medina to recite.
So Malik says, go back and say,
Go back and tell him, oh, leader of
the Muslims,
knowledge
is something you come to. It doesn't come
to you. It's not how it works.
Right? Especially a statement like that.
Just say no. So remember we said, he
didn't wanna be the judge. He didn't wanna
be the qadi. And what happened to him?
He died in prison. So just saying no
is dangerous. Imagine telling him, that's not how
it works. You come here.
But Imam Malik, he didn't he didn't suffer
fools. He never suffered fools. If someone came
in the masjid, tried to and he felt
he was asking a controversial question, trying to
stir up debate, he would kick them out.
He didn't suffer fools, and he didn't suffer
foolishness, even if it was from
Amir Motmeneed. So he was he was a
brave man for sure. So
Arashid
sends the messenger back and tells him, fine.
We will come on the condition he kicks
out everyone else. I'm not gonna sit in
the mess with these
commoners. Right? We have to we we're we're
not normal people. Right? It's the Khalifa and
his entourage.
So he tells the messenger, go back and
tell
him, indeed knowledge, if you kick out the
public, if you don't if you prevent the
public from learning,
If you kick out the commoners and you
don't let them learn, then the commoners won't
benefit and neither will the elite. No one's
gonna get anything.
If you make knowledge just for a certain
group of people, no one will benefit.
Why? Because that certain group will eventually forget
or weaken or die, and now no one
will get anything. And what benefit will they
have
what benefit will knowledge accomplish if it's only
for certain
people? Knowledge was not revealed for that. Right?
Allah didn't reveal the Quran for a certain
class of people. In fact, he condemned
for doing that, for saying the Torah and
the bible are for the rabbis and the
priest, and you guys have nothing to do
with them. They change as they will. Right?
This is something Allah can condemn. So he
tells him, go tell that
if we prevent the public from knowledge, then
neither the public nor the elites will benefit
from anything.
So Arashid said fine. Arashid said fine. We
will come,
we will come to you. He he he
gave up because the name Malik is a
personality.
He's beloved by the whole Ummah. Right? Especially
Madina, they love him dearly. They they they
give him his status. There's no scholar except
that he tell sends people to Malik, and
the people love him dearly. So he humbled
himself and agreed to come,
and,
he said, when we come, the reason we're
coming again is what what does he want
from Malik?
He wants him to recite to him. But
what did he say about and?
He doesn't recite it anymore. People recite it.
So he told them, when you come, I
will not be reciting.
You're not gonna get what you want. It
doesn't work like that. Right? The the knowledge
what's Imam Malik's point here? He's not arrogant.
He's not saying who are you and who
am I? He's saying
knowledge has a reverence,
and nothing gets higher than that because it's
the knowledge of Allah and his messengers
Doesn't matter who you are. You give knowledge,
it's due. It will not give you anything.
It doesn't owe you anything. You owe it
everything. So he says, and is no longer
recited by me. People will recite it, and
you can hear it.
Arashid says, fine. He just wants to hear
That's how popular it is. That's how popular
Malik
is. He gets there,
and he sits next to Malik. Alright. And
he sat on a small cushion while he's
teaching people because he's teaching a masjid full.
So remember, my cousin, what?
You gotta stay with everyone else. Right? That's
not how it works. Doesn't matter if you're
the Khalifa, you're the president. He tells him,
we came from somewhere
where people humbled themselves before knowledge.
This translates into
sit on the floor like everyone else. Right?
So he he's treading very dangerous path. This
is a time where people killed for a
way left. Right? Especially rulers. They were untouchable.
There there there was no type of,
didn't have to answer to anyone, and they
showed in the way that they ruled at
that time. But he's trying to tell him
that this knowledge is of a status,
and there is nothing
greater than that status. Knowledge doesn't come to
anyone. You come to it. There's no special
status in knowledge except by what you learn
and what you implement and your your intention
with Allah.
So this was the reverence that he gave
knowledge and the importance. He was also humble.
It's important to mention that this was not
from arrogance. He didn't see much of himself.
He was very humble. And there's there's one
narration that mentions how a man came to
me and said, I came to you from
Bilal Al Kharab,
all the way far west, the frontier of
the Muslim Ummah, you know, a 1000 miles
away in Al Andalus.
And the people gathered
all their questions for me to ask you.
And he asked him, some say 30, some
say 40 questions, Shook ruling.
And for 75% of them, some say 30
out of 40, some say 33, some say
29 out of 30. These are different numbers
you'll see. Bottom line is 70, 80% of
them, he told him, I don't know.
I don't know the answer.
I don't know the answer. This one's that,
but this one I don't know. So for
33 or 35 out of 40 questions, he
said, I do not know. So the man
said, this is Imam Malik. They told me
he's the greatest guy in the world, and
he says, what will I tell my village
when I go back?
Oh, I tell them. He said, tell them,
Imam Malik says he doesn't know.
Tell him tell him what I told you.
The scholars, you know, they they don't have
a list from from my knowledge, my limited
knowledge of every the question they asked him,
but they differed you know, they they offered
explanations on why did a man made it
do this. One of them is that he
said
they said that,
especially in that time, there was a large,
fad of asking hypothetical questions.
If this and this happens, what do I
do? And so the scholars in that time
and even from the time of that this
would happen, people are hungry for knowledge. So
they say, if I go here and this
happens, what do I do? So this you'll
see from many scholars when they told them,
if it didn't happen yet, I'm not gonna
give you an answer. Why should I work
my mind, give you a ruling that I
have to answer to Allah for for something
that doesn't even exist. Right? Doesn't ever happen.
So when it happens, come back and ask
me. So perhaps many of them were hypothetical
that was very common back then. Another thing
is that he intended humility.
He's not the only scholar from here a
1000 miles to a 1500 miles. There's a
lot. So he doesn't want to,
make it a thing where people travel just
to ask me, like, the scholars elsewhere. I'm
not the only scholar in the world. I
don't know about the situation back in your
village. So I can I can give you
a ruling that doesn't apply because you're gonna
go back
6 months in a 4, 3, 4, 5,
6 month journey, and things will change? Things
won't apply. I don't know the reality. I've
never been outside of Medina. So these are
all explanations that the scholars offered. Perhaps, you
know, the truth is between all of them
or a mixture of all of them.
And skip this for time
so don't get beat up.
Quickly, the, you know, the sources of his
suk, where did he get suk from? So
remember, we said, remember Hanifa was the Quran,
the sunnah, the hadith of prophet Ijma'a
consensus, especially Ijma'a of Saba. He gave that
very strong weight as it's due.
Qiyas, he he relied heavily on Qiyas' analogy,
taking the ruling of one thing and applying
it something else as long as there's a
link,
and,
and the custom of the people as well
as well as the the istafen with juristic
preference. So that these were the the sources
of imam Abu Hanifa's ruling. Any one of
his rulings will go back to one of
these sources or more. None of them were
willy nilly or from his mind. And this
is all the imams. As for imam Malik,
his source was the Quran, again. The sunnah,
again. Ijma'a, again. These are the top 3
for all the
all the. They focus on these 3. If
the answer is found in these 3, they
wouldn't look elsewhere. Right? The answer for any
ruling.
After that, he would look at Ahmadineah,
and he's unique in this.
So
Ahmadineah is the practices in worship and firk
of the people of Madina. Why did he
give this weight? And he's the only madhab
that did this, the only imam that did
this,
as, you know, as as a main source
of fiqh and official principle of his madhab
of his madhab. He put it in there
because he grew up in Medina.
So everyone that he's growing up with is
the grandson or great grandson of a companion.
So his logic was whatever they're doing
was taught by
either the son or a grandson of a
companion. And whatever the a companion did was
taught by the prophet
So if someone is doing something, even if
he can't give me a hadith or an
ayah for it, I will make this proof
because it couldn't be from anywhere else.
The companions, they have that. There was none
of them that would do anything outside of
the sunnah or would venture, you know, using
their own mind. Everything was based in Quran
and sunnah for that. No one ever differs.
Right? No one in
ever differs over that. So his logic was
they were the teachers of that generation that
I'm looking at or the or they they
were the teachers of the teachers. Right? Because
he either met children of companions or grandchildren
of companions. That was his time. And very
few great grandchildren of companions. Very few.
So they're very close. So he says because
they're very close,
he said this must have a basis,
even if I cannot tell you the ayur
hadith. And it makes sense. Right? It's logical.
Today, we can't say that. Right? Because there's
1400
years since the Sahaba.
Allah has changed, and they're not there's no
direct link. By then, there was a direct
link, so he gave that a special
emphasis in his madhab. And there's other,
sources as well. I just want to mention,
Amal El Medina because it's unique to his
madhab.
And finally, like all the great imams and
every single person that we'll cover, what's the
last part of the story always?
Their
their trial,
their difficulty, their suffering. And this is
what the prophet told us.
The person is tried, is tested, is put
through difficulty in accordance to the level of
their religious commitment.
And another narration, he told us if there
should die, if there's strength in the religious
commitment, then the will be strong. It's not
gonna be something small. Because Allah knows this
person can take it and will fare through
it and will earn good deeds through it,
and that's ultimately what Allah wants for this
person to rise. And if there's leniency in
the deen, meaning this person's deen, is not
that strong, then likewise, the test will not
be that strong. Allah will not send them
something super catastrophic that will ruin their religion.
That's not what Allah wants.
That is not what Allah intends. So these
greats all had great trials. And again, that
teaches the lesson. And the most tried person
ever, the most difficulty was who?
Hammed salallahu alaihi wa sallam. Right? He was
an orphan who buried all of his children.
He was a man who was beloved
and revered
and the son of the town,
but all of a sudden overnight became the
exile, the sorcerer, the liar. No one suffered
as much as him.
He buried 6 out of 7 children, right,
in his lifetime,
and a couple of grandchildren as well that
died in his lifetime. He was cast out
by his people. He's had to starve for
years. And, again, he had to go after
40 something years of overnight
to.
That's not easy. Right? From the truthful, the
trustworthy, to the liar, the magician. So his
suffering was the worst. And, you know, in
it, we'll see we'll learn how to be
patient and how to gain strength. So his
trial came in 146,
around 20 years before he died or so,
30 years, Raziel, Rahim Allah. So in his
mid age, when he was around 50 years
old, you could say.
And there's different accounts of why the trial
happened. But similar to Abu Hanifa, where the
ruler wanted one thing, it didn't work out,
so he was punished for it. There's one
narration that says he gave a,
he narrated a hadith that says that the
person who makes the law, divorce, under compulsion,
it doesn't count.
I put a gun to your head and
I say divorce your wife, you say she's
divorced, it doesn't count because you are under
compulsion. Alright. Just like anyone that does anything
under compulsion.
So there was a group of people who
rebelled against the Abbasids. Remember that time had
a lot of rebellion, a lot of, infighting
amongst the the Muslims with a different change
of dynasties and rulers and whatnot. So one
of the people took these these hadith and
the rulings that stemmed from it, from his
lessons, to
support his,
reasoning for rebelling against the ruler of that
time, which is which was Abu Jafar al
Mansur.
So when he did that,
the Wali of Medina
said, you know, after he he suppressed the
uprising
and he killed all those who stood against
him, they told him that then he found
out that their main evidence,
their Islamic evidence for what they were doing
was the teachings of Malik.
So he had Malik imprisoned and tortured. You
know, he was, lashed, and he was lashed
so severely that his shoulder became dislocated.
And some say that's why he prayed with
his arms down. That's not a very likely
explanation. Most likely, his view was the sunnah
is to pray like this. That's more likely.
And some scholars say no. It's because his
shoulder was dislocated, so he was unable to
do this for a long time. Even after
his injury healed, he was still unable to
do this. And some scholars say no. That's
not a strong explanation at all. It was
his view in his medev that is then,
you know, that they're putting the hands down
while praying, and, you know, they they they
differed over the placement of the hands.
Either way,
so this was his and,
you know, the
the reverence that he had for the messenger
of Allah even came out here.
We'll close with this and his death.
He it was narrated that a short while
later, Abu Jafar came to make Hajj, and
he visited Al Madina, and he says, bring
me Malik. So Malik comes to him, imam
Malik comes to him, and he tells him
and there's different narrations. Some say that he
just apologized, and some say he he said,
I didn't even know that this happened to
you, and I didn't command it. Had nothing
to do with me.
The people who who, did it were acting,
you know,
out of their own accord. And, of course,
the rulers are all related. Right? The Khalifa
is related to the of Medina, and they're
all protecting the dynasty by saying, I didn't
directly command it, so I'm sorry. And he
gave him a long
apology where he praised him, praised his knowledge,
praised his love of the sunnah, and things
like that. So what does,
what does Malik say to him?
After this, he's he's whipped in injustice. And
some say Abu Abu Jafar didn't really mean
it. He only did this because he sent
he when he came, he saw that the
people of Medina hated him and hated his
deputy, his ruler. Why? Because they punished Malik,
and Malik, you know, his reputation in in
Medina is indisputable.
So because of that, he just came as
a show to apologize and to win the
favor back with the people so they don't
rebel again. Right? They're constantly rebelling, and he
wants to keep them, placated. Whatever the reason
is, it doesn't matter. The bottom line is
when he said his apology, whether it was
fake or sincere or whether he buttered tried
to butter up Imam Malik or not, none
of that matters because what Imam Malik told
him was, I forgive you.
Why?
He says,
The Abbasids,
they they're called Abbasids because they send from
Al Abbas, the uncle of the prophet
He says, I forgive you because of your
close ties with the messenger of Allah You're
his relative. You're his cousin
4 generations down, so I forgive you for
that reason. And because he said, I forgive
you because of how close you are to
the prophet and how close he is to
you. And the prophet told us that whoever
whoever's actions hold them back,
their lineage
their lineage don't speed them up. If you're
slowed down by your actions, you're not a
good person, your lineage don't catch you to
catch up with anyone. And he says that
Fatima, the daughter of Muhammad. So I told
him, he didn't say Fatima is the daughter
of Rasulullah.
Because of his reverence for the messenger of
Allah
Finally, in the year 179 after the hijrah,
Al Qadir Ayad, who was also a contemporary
of him and Abu Hanifa and a student
slash contemporary, he says we came to visit
Malik in the year 179
after a long illness,
that he had, and this was his deathbed.
And he says we came to him and
we told him, how are you? You know,
how are you how are you feeling right
now? And he told them
He told them tomorrow he said, I don't
know what to tell you. They're asking how
do you feel? He said, I don't know
what to tell you. Why? Because tomorrow you
will see.
Pardon from Allah
which you cannot imagine.
He's telling them tomorrow, meaning when you die,
you will see pardon from Allah. Forgiveness from
Allah beyond what you can imagine.
And then he Al Qadhi says we did
not leave his bedside except that he closed
his eyes and that he passed away.
May Allah have mercy on him and all
the Muslim scholars and all the Muslim teachers
and students and all the Muslims throughout history.
His madhab is
very prominent
in the
Islamic Maghreb, Tunis,
Libya,
Morocco,
and the,
sub sub Saharan Africa. All the African countries
as well is very popular there as well.
There are also pockets in Al Hejaz, Saudi
Arabia,
and,
you know, the the surrounding
countries of the Arabian Peninsula where Malik Ifilk
is practiced.
And like we said, he was a teacher
of a which trickled down to Ahmed and
you
you know, I didn't I didn't number the
lessons like we did with Abu Hanifa for
the sake of brevity, but the only the
main lesson I would say take away from
this is the reverence
for the messenger of Allah salallahu alaihi wa
sallam, his family,
his words, his way of life. It's not
to be taken lightly. It's not to be
taken in jest. It's not to be taken,
it's not to be,
you know,
considered a given that we're the followers of
the prophet or that we relay the hadith
or read the hadith book that we could
pick up the shelves. You know, we we
we shouldn't take these matters lightly. We should
really approach them with reverence, the the teachings
of the prophet and his and his companions.
Of the allah, whom we should approach it
with utmost reverence,
right, and respect, and give it its due.
Because this is the greatest man to ever
live, who spoke on behalf of Allah,
the creator of all that exists. And,
imam Malik taught us that lesson in the
way that he learned and the way that
he taught and the way that he lived
and died.
May Allah have mercy on him.
And
next week with
and the 3rd,
founder of the 3rd.
And if there's any questions, we will take
them
after Isha.