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Four Schools / Fiqh
Rooted in the practice of the people of Madīnah as a living witness to the Sunnah and its applied fiqh.
Founder
Mālik ibn ʾAnas
Central Focus
How the school orders its legal sources and derives rulings.
Mālikiyyah
The school’s better-known methodological and legal distinctives.
Al-Madhab al-Mālikī holds a number of well-known positions that display the connection between its transmitted inheritance and its legal principles. “Distinct” does not always mean unique to Mālik alone; several positions are shared with one or two of the other schools. Their significance lies in the particular combination adopted as the relied-upon practice of the Madhab.
On water affected by impurity: the school holds that water remains pure and purifying so long as an impurity has not changed one of its recognised qualities—taste, colour, or smell—without making legal purity depend upon the water reaching a fixed minimum quantity. A small vessel of water into which impurity falls is therefore not automatically impure merely because it is small, although using a small amount exposed to impurity may be avoided where clean water is readily available and doubt remains. The controlling question is real alteration, not an abstract volumetric threshold. This differs from the well-known Shāfiʿī and Ḥanbalī use of the two-Qullah distinction and from the quantitative classifications developed in the Ḥanafī school.1
On living animals and the dog: the living body of an animal is, in principle, ritually pure, and its sweat, tears, and saliva follow that rule unless independently contaminated. The dog is therefore not treated as intrinsically impure, nor is its saliva held to make water impure merely by contact where no change occurs. At the same time, the school preserves the Prophetic command concerning a vessel licked by a dog and recommends washing it seven times as a devotional ruling. The result is characteristic: the Ḥadīth is acted upon without deriving from it a general doctrine that the living animal’s substance is impure. Rules restricting the acquisition or keeping of dogs for no recognised need remain a separate question and are not relaxed by this classification.2
On tanning the hide of a dead animal: the relied-upon position does not consider tanning to remove the ritual impurity of a hide taken from an animal that died without valid slaughter. Tanning nevertheless produces a practical benefit and licenses restricted use of the hide, particularly for dry materials and, according to the detailed rules, certain uses involving water, while it is not treated as a pure garment or prayer surface. The school thus distinguishes purification from usefulness. A physical process may make an object durable and reduce corruption without changing the legal judgment attached to the unslaughtered carcass. This differs from schools that understand the command to tan hides as effecting ritual purification itself.3
On the obligations of Wuḍūʾ: wiping the whole head, rubbing the washed limbs with the hand (Dalk), and maintaining continuity between the acts of purification (Muwālāh or Fawr) occupy a stronger position in the Mālikī school than in the other Madhāhib. The whole head is wiped rather than a minimum portion. Rubbing is not treated as a merely recommended addition to the arrival of water, and deliberate separation of the limbs without excuse conflicts with the required continuity. The school’s description of Wuḍūʾ therefore emphasises the completed act as one integrated purification rather than a collection of independently satisfied washings. Details concerning inability, forgetfulness, dryness caused by ordinary conditions, and the resumption of an interrupted Wuḍūʾ are treated separately in the manuals.4
On touching a person of the opposite sex: mere skin contact does not automatically nullify Wuḍūʾ. The relevant factor is sexual pleasure: Wuḍūʾ is invalidated when the person intends pleasure by the touch or actually finds it, with further details concerning kissing, barriers, age, and the ordinary possibility of desire. This differs from the well-known Shāfiʿī rule in which direct skin contact itself has legal effect under its stated conditions, and from the Ḥanafī rule, which does not ordinarily treat touch alone as a nullifier. The Mālikī position is an example of the school identifying the operative meaning behind a physical act rather than assigning the same ruling to every instance of contact.5
On the Basmalah in obligatory Ṣalāh: the well-known transmission from Mālik is that Bismillāhi-r-Raḥmāni-r-Raḥīm is not recited as part of al-Fātiḥah or as an opening to the following Sūrah in the obligatory prayer, neither audibly nor silently. It may be recited in supererogatory recitation under the conditions discussed by the jurists. The school does not deny that the Basmalah is Qurʾān where it occurs in Sūratu-n-Naml or that it marks the divisions of the Muṣḥaf; the question is whether it is a verse of al-Fātiḥah and part of its liturgical recitation. This is one of the clearest practical contrasts with the Shāfiʿī Madhab.6
On Qunūt in Fajr: Qunūt is recommended in the second unit of the dawn prayer, recited quietly, with its preferred place before bowing, although the transmitted discussion recognises performance after bowing. It is not made a pillar whose omission invalidates the prayer. The practice reflects reports and inherited prayer in Madīnah as received by the school. This differs from the Ḥanafī concentration of regular Qunūt in Witr and from the ordinary Ḥanbalī restriction of Fajr Qunūt to calamity, while sharing the daily Fajr practice in broad terms with the Shāfiʿī school despite differences in placement and details.7
On the position of the hands in standing prayer: the most famous western Mālikī practice in the obligatory prayer is Sadl, allowing the arms to rest naturally at the sides. The early transmission also contains permission for Qabḍ—placing one hand over the other—particularly in a lengthy supererogatory prayer, and later authorities differed over whether Mālik’s dislike concerned reliance upon the hands, ostentatious affectation, or the act in the obligatory prayer as such. It is therefore inaccurate to declare Qabḍ invalid or foreign to the school. The practical distinction is that Sadl became a recognised and widely relied-upon Mālikī form, while the Madhab retained authenticated internal discussion rather than reducing the question to a test of affiliation.8
On deliberately breaking the fast of Ramaḍān: the major expiation is not confined to intercourse. Deliberate eating or drinking during a valid Ramaḍān fast, without a lawful excuse and in conscious violation of the month’s sanctity, can require both making up the day and the major Kaffārah. The school also treats the recognised forms of Kaffārah—emancipating a slave, fasting two consecutive months, or feeding sixty needy persons—as alternatives in its classical formulation, with preference discussed among the jurists, rather than imposing the same strict sequence found in some other schools. Intention, forgetfulness, mistaken interpretation, travel, illness, and the kind of invalidating act materially affect the ruling.9
On the minimum congregation for Jumuʿah: the school does not require forty worshippers. Its well-known position requires twelve resident men meeting the relevant conditions in addition to the ʾImām, present for the sermon and prayer in the manner specified by the jurists. The number is connected in the school’s argument to the report of those who remained with the Prophet ﷺ when a trading caravan arrived during the sermon. It stands between the smaller congregational requirements associated with the Ḥanafī school and the forty-person condition famous in the Shāfiʿī and Ḥanbalī traditions. Residence, settlement, the mosque or place, and continuity of attendance are all separate conditions; the number alone does not establish a valid Friday prayer.10
On recitation behind the ʾImām: the follower is recommended to recite in prayers or units where the ʾImām recites silently, but not to compete with the audible recitation of the ʾImām. The rule joins the obligation of al-Fātiḥah in its proper place to the Qurʾānic command to listen when the Qurʾān is recited and to the inherited practice of congregational prayer. It differs from the Shāfiʿī requirement that the follower recite al-Fātiḥah in every unit under the relevant conditions and from positions that make the ʾImām’s recitation wholly sufficient in both audible and silent prayers. The Mālikī manuals therefore distinguish the individual, the ʾImām, and the follower rather than applying one rule of recitation to all three.11
The Muʿtamad of al-Madhab al-Mālikī is the position upon which qualified Fatwā and adjudication may properly rest. Determining it is not a matter of finding one sentence attributed to Mālik, nor of assuming that the latest book automatically cancels everything before it. The school contains direct statements of the founder, variant transmissions from his students, the independent Ijtihād of those students, later derivations upon the school’s foundations, and preferences formed in different regions. Its doctrine of reliance developed to prevent this abundance from becoming arbitrary choice.
At the base of the positive-law tradition stand al-Muwaṭṭaʾ and the early transmissions, above all al-Mudawwanah. Within the later hierarchy, a position transmitted by ʾIbn al-Qāsim in al-Mudawwanah ordinarily possesses exceptional weight because of his length of study with Mālik, the revisions behind the work, and its reception by the jurists of Qayrawān and the Maghrib. This preference is not absolute in the face of a stronger established transmission, an explicit retraction, a recognised contrary preference, or a matter in which the later school judged another view more faithful to proof and principle. ʾAshhab, ʾIbn Wahb, ʾIbn al-Mājishūn, and other early authorities remain genuine voices within the Madhab rather than footnotes to ʾIbn al-Qāsim.12
The long period of comparison produced a vocabulary that must be handled carefully. Mashhūr commonly denotes the view made prevalent within the school, often explained as the position held by the greater number of authorities, though some jurists define it through the strength or fame of its proof and transmission. Rājiḥ denotes the view judged stronger by evidence or juristic preference. The two may coincide, but they need not. Ṣaḥīḥ marks a view judged sound; Aṣaḥḥ marks the sounder of two; Ẓāhir may identify what appears stronger to an authority or what is apparent from a text; and Madhab may be used for a position attributed to the school by derivation even where no direct wording from Mālik survives. These expressions changed somewhat across authors and periods, which is why a mufti cannot safely read them without knowing the convention of the book before him.13
Al-ʾImām Khalīl رحمه الله made his own conventions explicit in the introduction to his Mukhtaṣar:
“A group asked me—may Allāh make clear to me and to them the landmarks of verification—for an abridgement upon the Madhab of al-ʾImām Mālik ibn ʾAnas, clarifying that upon which Fatwā is given … I indicate by ‘in it’ the Mudawwanah; by ‘the preference’ al-Lakhmī; by ‘the preponderance’ ʾIbn Yūnus; by ‘the apparent view’ ʾIbn Rushd; and by ‘the statement’ al-Māzarī. Wherever I say ‘disagreement,’ that is because of disagreement over which view is Mashhūr. Wherever I mention two views or several views, that is because I did not find an explicit preponderance in that branch.”
╾ Muqaddimatu Mukhtaṣar Khalīl, Khalīl ibn ʾIsḥāq ╼
This preface disproves the notion that the Mukhtaṣar is a simple list of Mālik’s own answers. Khalīl signals al-Mudawwanah, identifies the preferences of particular verifiers, and sometimes records disagreement because he could not establish one authorised preponderance. His text is a map of the late school’s verification. It must be read through the earlier corpus and the commentaries that identify the material compressed into each phrase.14
In broad terms, the mufti seeks the position that the recognised authorities have made Mashhūr or Rājiḥ and upon which Fatwā proceeds. When the Mashhūr and the view judged stronger in proof diverge, Mālikī scholars have not always stated one mechanical answer for every circumstance. Some give priority to the Mashhūr because it secures the school’s transmitted stability; others permit or require the Rājiḥ where its preponderance is established by an authority qualified to make that judgment. The mufti’s own rank matters. A scholar capable only of transmitting the Madhab may not overturn its established Fatwā because he personally prefers an argument. A verifier capable of comparing proofs and transmissions has a different responsibility, but even he must distinguish independent Ijtihād from attribution to Mālik.15
A further category is Mā Jarā Bihi-l-ʿAmal, the view upon which judicial or Fatwā practice has proceeded in a particular region. In the Maghrib especially, a position other than the abstract Mashhūr sometimes became operative because of a compelling custom, public need, prevention of harm, corruption of conditions, or another legally recognised cause. This is not the ordinary person’s permission to select a convenient minority view. Its use presupposes a qualified authority, a known legal cause, a defined social setting, and a position that remains within the recognised resources of the Madhab and does not contradict a decisive text or consensus. When the cause disappears, the special practice may also disappear.16
The later reference tradition reflects several regional pathways. For the Khalīlian text and its sources, the works of al-Mawwāq and al-Ḥaṭṭāb are indispensable. The commentaries of al-Kharashī and az-Zurqānī, together with the marginalia of al-ʿAdawī and al-Bannānī, preserve major lines of interpretation. In the Egyptian line, ash-Sharḥu-l-Kabīr of ad-Dardīr with the marginalia of ad-Dasūqī, and the works of Muḥammad ʿIllīsh, became central references. Maghribī Fatwā collections, including al-Miʿyāru-l-Muʿrib of al-Wansharīsī, preserve how doctrine was applied in courts and local practice. No one of these works renders the rest unnecessary. A ruling in worship may be clear in a concise manual; a complex transaction or judicial question may require returning through the commentaries to al-Mudawwanah, the early mother books, the legal maxims, and the custom of the place.17
The essential rule is that not every transmitted Mālikī opinion is the Muʿtamad, and not every Muʿtamad answer is eternally detached from the circumstances that made it relied upon. The school preserves minority positions because they illuminate evidence, derivation, and possible need; it does not preserve them so that desire may roam freely among them. It recognises changing custom because the law sometimes attaches to changing descriptions; it does not make change itself a proof against revelation. It honours Khalīl because he mapped the result of centuries of verification; it does not imagine that his compressed wording can replace those centuries.
And Allāh ﷻ knows best. May He be pleased with al-ʾImām Mālik ibn ʾAnas, the ʾImām of Dāru-l-Hijrah رحمه الله; with his teachers and students; with ʾIbn al-Qāsim, ʾIbn Wahb, ʾAshhab, Yaḥyā al-Laythī, and Saḥnūn رحمهم الله; with the scholars of Madīnah, Egypt, Qayrawān, ʿIrāq, al-ʾAndalus, al-Maghrib, and the lands beyond the Sahara; and with all who carried this inheritance faithfully from one generation to the next. May He grant us knowledge joined to restraint, adherence joined to understanding, and worship joined to sincerity. Āmīn.
Classical works cited below circulate in several editions whose pagination does not always agree. Where the passage is readily identified by a chapter, letter, Qurʾānic verse, or the author’s technical formula, that locator is supplied rather than pretending that one modern page number is universal. Translated quotations in the article are deliberately close but readable; the decisive Arabic wording is recorded in the relevant notes when it materially controls the interpretation.
See Khalīl, al-Mukhtaṣar, Kitābu-ṭ-Ṭahārah, and the explanations of ad-Dardīr, ad-Dasūqī, al-Ḥaṭṭāb, and ʿIllīsh. The controlling criterion is change by an impurity in taste, colour, or smell. The details distinguish change caused by substances naturally associated with water, pure substances mixed into it, and actual Najāsah. The article states the school’s general rule and does not imply that every altered liquid remains “water” suitable for purification. ↩
Khalīl treats the secretions of living creatures under the general purity of the living body and separately states the recommendation to wash a vessel from a dog’s lapping seven times. See al-Mukhtaṣar, Kitābu-ṭ-Ṭahārah; al-Ḥaṭṭāb, Mawāhibu-l-Jalīl; and ad-Dardīr with ad-Dasūqī. The Mālikī classification of the dog as pure does not negate the Ḥadīths concerning vessel-washing, the reduction of reward for keeping a dog without need, or rules of hunting and acquisition; these are separate legal questions. ↩
See Khalīl, al-Mukhtaṣar, the discussion of the hide of carrion, and the major commentaries. The well-known position maintains the impurity of the hide after tanning while licensing specified uses. Commentators discuss dry substances, water, prayer, sale, and the exclusion or inclusion of particular animals. Because these subsidiary details are not identical in every presentation, the article states the central distinction—restricted benefit without full ritual purification—rather than an unlimited permission. ↩
The obligations of wiping the whole head, Dalk, and continuity are stated in Khalīl’s chapter on Wuḍūʾ and explained in Mawāhibu-l-Jalīl, ad-Dardīr’s ash-Sharḥu-l-Kabīr, and ad-Dasūqī’s marginalia. Continuity is conditioned by remembrance and ability in the detailed doctrine; inability to rub directly may be answered by another means. The comparison with other schools concerns the relied-upon classification, not whether they recommend these acts. ↩
Khalīl’s compact rule is that touch invalidates when its actor ordinarily seeks pleasure by it and either intends pleasure or finds it, with further distinctions supplied by the commentaries. See al-Mukhtaṣar, nullifiers of Wuḍūʾ; al-Kharashī; ad-Dardīr; and ad-Dasūqī. Kissing the mouth and contact through barriers receive their own analysis. The operative role of intention or experienced pleasure is what separates the general Mālikī rule from automatic invalidation by all qualifying skin contact. ↩
Al-Mudawwanah records Mālik’s answer: “لا يقرأ في الصلاة بسم الله الرحمن الرحيم في المكتوبة لا سراً في نفسه ولا جهراً”—“The Basmalah is not recited in the obligatory prayer, neither silently to oneself nor aloud”—and adds: “وهي السنة وعليها أدركت الناس.” See al-Mudawwanatu-l-Kubrā, Kitābu-ṣ-Ṣalāh, discussion of recitation. The same passage distinguishes supererogatory prayer. Later Mālikī commentators discuss exceptional circumstances, following an ʾImām of another school, and whether recitation is disliked or omitted as the Sunnah. ↩
Khalīl’s formula is: “وقنوت سراً بصبح فقط وقبل الركوع”—Qunūt quietly in Fajr alone, before bowing. See al-Mukhtaṣar, recommended acts of prayer, with al-Ḥaṭṭāb and ad-Dardīr. Reports and practice concerning placement before and after bowing are known; the pre-bowing placement is the preference stated by Khalīl, not a claim that the alternative invalidates the prayer. ↩
The famous passage of al-Mudawwanah reports ʾIbn al-Qāsim: “قال مالك: لا أعرف ذلك في الفريضة، وكان يكرهه، ولكن في النوافل إذا طال القيام فلا بأس بذلك يعين به نفسه” concerning placing one hand upon the other. The interpretation of Mālik’s dislike and the existence of other transmissions produced a substantial later discussion. See al-Mudawwanah, Kitābu-ṣ-Ṣalāh; ʾIbn ʿAbd al-Barr, al-ʾIstidhkār; al-Bājī, al-Muntaqā; and the commentaries on Khalīl. The article therefore describes Sadl as the famous practice without declaring Qabḍ invalid. ↩
See Khalīl, al-Mukhtaṣar, Kitābu-ṣ-Ṣiyām, and ad-Dardīr with ad-Dasūqī on the causes and forms of Kaffārah. The Mālikī school extends the major expiation to deliberate eating and drinking under its conditions, not only intercourse. Its classical doctrine generally treats emancipation, two consecutive months of fasting, and feeding sixty needy persons as alternatives, while the preference for feeding and the amount supplied are detailed by the jurists. Forgetfulness, coercion, invalid intention from the night, and a plausible interpretation can change the ruling. ↩
Khalīl states the numerical and residential conditions in Kitābu-l-Jumuʿah; the commentaries explain that twelve qualifying resident men besides the ʾImām must be present in the required manner. The school connects the number to the report in Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim and elsewhere concerning those who remained during the sermon when the caravan arrived. The evidentiary inference is Mālikī; the report itself does not contain a universal sentence saying “twelve is the minimum,” which is why other schools derive different numerical conditions. ↩
See Khalīl, al-Mukhtaṣar, the chapters on recitation and following an ʾImām, with al-Ḥaṭṭāb and ad-Dardīr. The follower’s recitation is recommended in silent prayer and left during audible recitation. Details arise when the follower cannot hear, enters late, or follows an ʾImām whose recitation differs. The article describes the ordinary relied-upon practice rather than every exceptional branch. ↩
The exceptional authority of al-Mudawwanah and the transmission of ʾIbn al-Qāsim is discussed throughout the introductions and preference rules of the later school. See ʾIbn ʾAbī Zayd, an-Nawādir wa-z-Ziyādāt; al-Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ, Tartību-l-Madārik; Khalīl, at-Tawḍīḥ; and al-Ḥaṭṭāb, Mawāhibu-l-Jalīl. This authority is presumptive, not an assertion that every sentence attributed to ʾIbn al-Qāsim defeats every contrary transmission regardless of context or later verification. ↩
Later Mālikī authors do not supply one entirely uniform definition of Mashhūr. One common definition refers to the greater number of those holding the view; another associates fame with the strength or recognised prevalence of its proof. Rājiḥ ordinarily concerns preponderance. See the introductions and terminological discussions of al-Ḥaṭṭāb, Mawāhibu-l-Jalīl; az-Zurqānī’s commentary; al-Bannānī’s marginalia; and Muḥammad ʿIllīsh, Minaḥu-l-Jalīl. A source’s own convention controls its use. ↩
Khalīl’s Arabic preface reads in part: “مختصراً على مذهب الإمام مالك بن أنس … مبيناً لما به الفتوى … مشيراً بـ(فيها) للمدونة … وبـ(الاختيار) للخمي … وبـ(الترجيح) لابن يونس … وبـ(الظهور) لابن رشد … وبـ(القول) للمازري … وحيث قلت خلاف فذلك للاختلاف في التشهير، وحيث ذكرت قولين أو أقوالاً فذلك لعدم اطلاعي في الفرع على أرجحية منصوصة.” See the Muqaddimah of Mukhtaṣar Khalīl, ed. Aḥmad Jād (Cairo: Dāru-l-Ḥadīth, 1426 AH). Some additional sigla are interpreted differently by commentators, which is itself evidence that the text must be read with its Sharḥ tradition. ↩
For the relationship of Mashhūr, Rājiḥ, and the rank of the mufti, see al-Qarāfī, al-ʾIḥkām fī Tamyīzi-l-Fatāwā ʿani-l-ʾAḥkām wa-Taṣarrufāti-l-Qāḍī wa-l-ʾImām; al-Ḥaṭṭāb, Mawāhibu-l-Jalīl; and the introductions of later Fatwā works. A transmitting mufti may report an established view without possessing the rank to reweigh the school’s proofs. A verifier may compare them, but must state when he is preferring an argument rather than transmitting the relied-upon attribution. ↩
Mā Jarā Bihi-l-ʿAmal is especially prominent in Maghribī judicial and Fatwā literature. See al-Wansharīsī, al-Miʿyāru-l-Muʿrib wa-l-Jāmiʿu-l-Mughrib ʿan Fatāwā ʿUlamāʾi ʾIfrīqiyyah wa-l-ʾAndalus wa-l-Maghrib, and later discussions of local practice. Its recognised grounds include need, custom, prevention of harm, and changed conditions. The doctrine is controlled by qualified legal judgment; it is not synonymous with “whatever courts happened to do,” and it cannot validate what a decisive source forbids. ↩
The books listed in the article belong to different functions. At-Tāj wa-l-ʾIklīl and Mawāhibu-l-Jalīl recover earlier transmissions behind Khalīl; al-Kharashī and az-Zurqānī explain the wording; al-ʿAdawī and al-Bannānī preserve critical marginal discussion; ad-Dardīr and ad-Dasūqī became central in the Egyptian teaching line; ʿIllīsh records later verification and Fatwā; and al-Miʿyār preserves applied western responsa. A serious ruling should use the source appropriate to the question instead of treating a single late commentary as an oracle for the entire Madhab. ↩