The Princeton Encyclopedia of Islamic Political Thought

Malik b. Anas (712–95)

Malik b. Anas is the founder and eponym of the Maliki school of law in Islam and the compiler and organizer of the earliest Muslim legal text, al-Muwatta’ (The trodden path), the oldest surviving large collection of traditions from the Prophet Muhammad (hadith). Because of the scantiness of contemporary biographical information about him and because of his importance as a foundational figure in Islam, there is considerable scholarly controversy about his history, despite the great mass of material about him.

Malik lived his entire life in his native city of Medina, which had been a political backwater since the beginning of the Umayyad dynasty in 661, but nevertheless remained a center for normative Muslim practice as the city of the Prophet Muhammad. Because of the pilgrimage requirement, important Muslims passed through the city on their way to Mecca at some point. While at Medina, they took the opportunity to learn more about Islam in the city of its original and authentic practice. For their part, the Medinans, including Malik, could take comfort from the fact that, despite their lack of political power, their city remained the center of Muslim traditional religious authority.

Malik strove to stay politically neutral during his life. There is no information about his relations with the Umayyads. After the new and insecure Abbasid dynasty came to power in 750, however, he received from the caliph Abu Ja‘far al-Mansur (r. 754–75) in 761 some financial benefit confiscated from the property of a suspected opponent of the dynasty, ‘Abdallah b. al-Hasan, a descendant of the fourth caliph ‘Ali b. Abi Talib (d. 661). This may indicate that Malik was thought to be unfavorable to ‘Alid political claims, which then greatly threatened the Abbasids’ legitimacy, and therefore the Abbasids sought to gain his favor. Nevertheless, in 762, when ‘Abdallah’s son Muhammad al-Nafs al-Zakiyya (d. 762) proclaimed his revolt against Mansur in Medina, Malik issued a fatwa invalidating the oath of allegiance to Mansur on the grounds that it was coerced. By so doing, Malik freed the Medinans to join the revolt, but instead of actively participating in it like his fellow scholar ‘Abdallah b. Yazid b. Hurmuz (d. 765), Malik himself stayed in his house. After the failure of the revolt, Malik was severely beaten for his defection in 763 by the governor of Medina and possibly also was put under house arrest.

Malik’s passive attitude eventually made possible a later reconciliation with the Abbasid dynasty, when in 777 Mansur’s son Muhammad al-Mahdi (ruled 775–85) consulted him about making alterations to the Ka‘ba. When Malik expressed his opposition to that idea, Mahdi heeded his advice. Much later, during the pilgrimage of 795 near the end of Malik’s life, Mahdi’s son Harun al-Rashid (r. 786–809) paid his respects to him when he passed through Medina and even visited him, although Malik had turned down a summons to come to the caliph. This is all that is known about Malik’s direct relations with political authorities. Other stories told about his dissuading either Mansur or Mahdi from promulgating his book, al-Muwatta’, as the law of the land appear to be apocryphal.

Malik’s relatively few overt contacts with the Abbasid political authorities do not clearly describe his political stances. His general avoidance of them, however, demonstrates the orientation of the rising class of religious scholars that helped to set the tone for them through the centuries. Malik’s own views are believed to be represented by the two Maliki law books, al-Muwatta’ and al-Mudawwana (The compendium). Al-Muwatta’ is entirely attributed to Malik but exists in various recensions, while al-Mudawwana, a larger compilation by the Tunisian Maliki scholar Sahnun (777–854), contains the reports of others beside Malik. Despite some uncertainty about the extent to which these works represent Malik himself, they clearly draw a specific image of him that has been received by the Muslims and that probably describes his views in general. Both works display an aversion to politics and, in particular, to the rulers of the time. Malik’s aversion emerges not so much from direct statements as from silence: the state and its officials are infrequently mentioned, usually with vague terms such as imam, sultan, wālī, amir, without specification of particular offices or institutions. The individual rulers in office, the Abbasid caliphs, and their dynasty never receive a single mention, nor do the defunct Umayyads and their latter-day successors in Spain. The audience for these works can hardly have been the rulers, and indeed their continued transmission and cultivation by scholars make it clear that they were addressed mainly to scholars.

By their general lack of reference to government, the works may be seen as demonstrating that Islam can be established and practiced almost without reference to the state. Thus, for example, rather than being asked whether rulers have the right to organize, regulate, and lead public worship, Malik is asked whether it is permissible to perform public worship with “these rulers” (hā’ulā’ al-wulāt)—a somewhat disparaging way to refer to the Abbasids. He replies in the affirmative, as long as the rulers do not display heresy. One of the few areas where the state seems definitely to be necessary is war. Yet, even here, there is very little mention of the state or any chain of command, apart from the commander’s power to give orders, including his power to allot the spoils, for example. In one of the few instances where rulers are mentioned, Malik is said to have been asked whether it was permissible to participate in a military campaign against the Byzantines with “these rulers.” Malik is said originally to have regarded such participation as not permissible, but he changed his mind because of the notorious Byzantine attack on the Muslim city of Mar‘ash in 778—an event that shook the caliph Mahdi himself. The reason Malik gave for his change of view was that not to allow participation in military campaigns, even if under “these rulers,” would cause harm to the people of Islam in general. Such discourses show little regard for caliphs, match Malik’s other history, and foreshadow the tendency of the ‘ulama’ to avoid close contact with the rulers that became standard through most of Islamic history down to the present.

On the other hand, Malik does assign to rulers the collection of mandatory alms (zakat) and the administration of ḥudūd punishments, which are major punishments mentioned or implied in the Qur’an, thus showing that he accepts the necessity of a ruler for some purposes. He also draws an important contrast between just and unjust rulers: while the former must be obeyed, the latter should not be obeyed when they issue unjust commands.