What distinguishes the Imam of Madina from the other Imams who have gained current ascendency among the vast bulk of the umma is his reliance on, his trust in the people of Madina al-Munawwara: Shafii, his student, in the end rejected the legal value of this intimate connection of his to his companions, fellow fuqaha and precursors in favour of an intellectual, head-based, systematic assessment of the deen which veered towards logic rather than trust, and we might say rather than love; people are after all subject to forgetfulness, misunderstanding and shortcomings – with respect to the capacity for fiqh and transmission of the deen – is the argument; he was born in Palestine, came to Makka and became part of Madina society only relatively late. Abu Hanifa was based in Kufa and was obliged to take much of his knowledge from single chains of transmission, i.e from isolated companions and tabi’un who arrived with the knowledge, that is their own particular portion of knowledge, they had acquired while residing in Madina at a particular time and in particular circumstances. But as Rabi’ reports, ‘A thousand from a thousand is preferable to me then one from one, as the sunna shall be stripped away from your hands by one from one’, and the sunna he is referring to is the sunna of the Messenger, on whom be peace and blessings, which then became the accepted pattern of social life for the people of Madina, i.e. the ‘amal; moreover ‘Ubaydallah ibn Abd al-Karim ar-Raazi said, ‘The Messenger of Allah, may the peace and blessings of Allah was taken [back to His Lord] while twenty thousand eyes wept for him’, i.e. referring to the ten thousand Companions who had remained in Madina up to the time of his death and who were living in accordance with the very last form and pattern of behaviour adopted by its inhabitants from the exemplar of the Messenger living among them. What was of overriding importance to Imam Malik was what the people were doing at that particular moment and the way this practice was transmitted by succeeding generations to him – with all of the changes and modifications occasioned by the fuqaha of Madina which naturally occurred on account of changing circumstances and new situations. These then were the people who knew which pattern of life corresponded the closest to that of the Messenger, on whom be peace and blessing – precisely because succeeding generations developed within that social framework. How different from the form transmitted by a student of his who later rejected this social transmission of the deen in favour of a system which strove to erase all the anomalies which must naturally occur in the recording of a prophetic teaching transmitted by men and women! how different from the form transmitted by the great alim of Kufa who did not have access to the last, complete, social ‘picture’ of Madina and so had to rely a great deal on fresh ijtihad, i.e. not the ijtihad of the tabi’un and tabi’u tabi’un!
In short, action, ‘amal, was of overriding importance for Imam Malik; indeed he defined iman in terms of action: iman which did not lead to action was of a very insubstantial form – he was not a Maturidi; iman he knew was subject to increase and decrease; this then is the underlying reason for his trust of the people of Madina: they were acting in accordance with the Messenger, they possessed the overall balanced, social way of living because they saw themselves as part of a complete society: they understood the danger of taking an isolated hadith, however authentic, out of context, i.e. by ignoring to whom it was said, why it was said and whether of not is was of general, social import.
Imam Malik said himself that he arrived at his ‘well trodden way’ because he took it from those he personally knew, who in turn had taken it personally from those they knew, and in turn from the latter who had taken it from the Messenger, on whom be peace and blessings.
This is in no way to denigrate the other two Imams mentioned above; but it is a clear statement to the effect that this is the way, par excellence, indeed the only way, for those who understand the existentialist truth of our Imam: he knew people of knowledge and he trusted them because they acted upon what they knew; and morever a whole society of them.
Imam Malik’s iman was therefore not solely intellectual but rather suffused with the actions and judgements of all those around him – a balance of intimate social awareness together with the capacity to understand the validity of the judgements of the tabiun and tabi at-tabiun which may have differed from the decisions of the Messenger – because given in particular circumstances or even abrogated. His concern was the overall good of society; how different from vast numbers of individual ulama and shaykhs, disconnected from any society or community of their own, who ascribe fanatically to the present obsession with confining the deen to hadiths and who in doing so bring imbalance and fitna to the umma. It may now be clear to the reader why the essentially hadith-based madhhab of Imam Ahmad was able to be misused to cause so much fitna, especially in Africa – which had hitherto been the Hochburg of love for Imam Malik, may Allah be please with him; perhaps too the Imam’s trust in the people around him might be an opening for the many mini shaykhs and ulama – who abound in virtal reality – to a non-informational understanding of the deen, enabling them to ditch the ideal Islam in their brains for a hands on, existential interaction with their fellow men and women, and an acceptance of a Rais, an Amir, a Sultan or a King – however faulty in their eyes, i.e. an acceptance of one of the pillars of the deen which they conveniently choose to ignore because it necessarily implies a societal rather then an intellectual commitment.
The Imam was urged on two occasions by the governor of Makka and the Khalif to allow his teaching to become the official deen; he declined, knowing that it was up to people themselves to recognise the truth of what he was teaching: those who are not following the Imam must ask themselves where ‘this business of ours’ as Imam Malik terms it, originated: he is the Imam Dar al-Hijra, the Imam of the place to which the Messenger went to to establish a social reality after he had become certain that it was not possible in Makka: if these people genuinely desire a blue print for a just and balanced society, then it is to the Illuminated City and its Imam rather than Makka or Kufa to which they must address their study and practice.