Al-Muwatta of Imam Malik Ibn Anas (25105)

Ash-Shafi'i said, "After the Book of Allah, there is no book on the face of the earth sounder than the book of Malik."

'Ala' ad-Din Maghlaṭay al-Hanafi said, "The first person to compile the ṣaḥiḥ was Malik."

Ibn Hajar said, "The book of Malik is sound by all the criteria that are demanded as proofs in the mursal, munqați and other types of transmission."

As-Suyuti followed Ibn Hajar's judgement and said, "It is absolutely correct to say that the Muwatta' is sound (sahih) without exception."

Al-Bukhari and Muslim transmitted most of its hadiths and included them in their Sahih collections. The authors of the rest of the six books, the Imam of the hadith scholars, Aḥmad ibn Hanbal, and others did the same.

But, in addition, the Muwatta' contains a record of the practice of the people of Madinah of the first generations, a transmission of the ethos that permeated the city and Imam Malik's painstaking clarification of the Sunna, the hadiths, the practice and legal judgements.

Imam Malik's full name is Mälik ibn Anas ibn Malik ibn Abi 'Amir al-Aşbaḥi and he was related to Dhu Aşbaḥ, a sub-tribe of Himyar. He was instructed in the learning and recitation of the Noble Qur'an by Imam Nafi' ibn 'Abd ar- Rahman ibn Abi Nu'aym, the Imam of the reciters of Madina and one of the "seven reciters". Among the huge number of his teachers in hadith and figh were Nafi', the mawla of 'Abdullah ibn 'Umar and Ibn Shihab az-Zuhri. He sat to give fatwa when he was seventeen years old after seventy Imāms had testified that he was worthy to give fatwa and teach.

His own students included Imam ash-Shafi'i and Imam Muhammad ibn al-Hasan ash-Shaybani the Hanafi mujtahid, as well as a great number of Imams of hadith and fiqh and thus he is known as Imam al-A'immah 'the Imam of the Imams'.