 I'm glad to be here today to speak with you about Imam Malik Ibn Anas, may Allah SWT have mercy upon him, and the lessons that we can take as students from his life. So to begin, Imam Malik Ibn Anas, his name is Abu Abdullah, that's his Kunya. That's what he was known, people called him by Abu Abdullah. His name was Malik Ibn Anas, the tribe that he was originally from Yemen, and he was born in the year 204 Hijrah, which corresponds to about 819 common area. His grandfather was a Sahabi, and you can imagine if your grandfather saw the Prophet SAW, what type of household you were raised in, and one note about the Sahaba, the reason why the Sahaba have their immense status is because they laid eyes on the Prophet SAW, or for the blind Sahabi, they were in his presence. And so a person achieves the status of being a Sahabi, even if they were in his presence for one instant. And that shows you the immense blessings and barakah of the light of the Prophet SAW, that just by one glimpse of him, this person totally changes, and now he becomes a Sahabi. And for a Tabi'i, for the person that comes after him, the only way a person can become a Tabi'i is if they spend a lot of time with a Sahabi. So that transfer of the light of the Prophet SAW takes more time from the Sahabi to the Tabi'i. But with the Sahabi, when he sits with the Prophet SAW, it comes immediately. So Imam Malik Ibn Anas, his grandfather was a Sahabi, and again it can show you how his house that he was raised in was like, with having a grandfather who was a Sahabi. He was raised in Medina, which was a center of knowledge, and his father made sure that his children, Imam Malik and his brother, were educated from a young age. Imam Malik and a lot of people don't know this. When he was young, he didn't aspire to become a scholar. His aspiration was to become a singer. He wanted to sing. And one of the people said that they actually remember Malik when he was a young boy and still had an earring in his ear. There was a tradition, and it's not haram for a little boy to wear an earring. They saw him when he was that young. And he also was known to raise birds. So he studied, but he wasn't known to spend a lot of time like his older brother studying, and his aspirations were to become a singer. And this is where the advice is for families, look at what his mother did for him. She took him aside, and she asked him about his aspirations for the future. And when he said, I want to become a singer, she said, as you become older and you lose your looks and you lose your voice, people aren't going to want to come listen to you anymore. Because that's the prime of a singer is his voice and his looks. She said, whereas if you go the route of knowledge, the older you become, the more people will want to come and be with you. And this was a life-changing advice for Imam Malik. So the advice for the seekers is that as a person who loves knowledge, you should transfer this on to your family members. So for the parents, transfer it to your children. Make the intention, if you don't have children, that this is the advice that you want to give to your children, the first and the primary thing that they should be concerned with is knowledge. His mother used to tie on his turban and get him ready for the lessons. And make sure that he's wearing the best clothes. And for the Arabs, the turban was the crown of their clothing. So she was getting him ready and teaching him that when you go to your lesson, be well-dressed, put on your best clothing. And she would be the one who would tie his turban. His father's advice, one time his father called Malik and his brother to ask them a question, to give them a test. He asked them a question of fiqh. Imam Malik's brother knew the answer. He didn't know the answer. Malik didn't know the answer. And Imam Malik's father reprimanded him, saying something along the lines of, you're spending too much time with your pets, with your birds. And so Imam Malik took that to heart and decided to go full speed in his studies. And he did that and he even surpassed his brother. Imam Malik went so fast and so to such a high degree that after getting the approval of 70 of the highest scholars of Medina, he became the foremost authority of knowledge in Medina at the age of 17. And so we can see that sometimes we underestimate the power in youth. But if we look at examples of Imam Malik and there's other stories that they reached a high level at a very young age, we should strive to take this knowledge that we're learning and pass it on to the youth of our communities so that we can have more Maliks and more Tariq ibn Ziyad. People don't realize that the conquering of Andalus under Tariq ibn Ziyad and he was only about 20 years old. Ibn Battuta began his world journey at about 22 years old. People were very young and did amazing things. There's also a story about Imam Malik or there's a hadith. The Prophet s.a.w. said, The Prophet s.a.w. in a hadith narrated by At-Tirmidhi said that there will come a time where people strike their camels going out to seek knowledge and they will not find a person more knowledgeable than the scholar of Medina. And this by consensus of all of the commentators of hadith was referring to Malik ibn Anas. Imam Shafi'i was a student of Imam Malik and that's enough to show you of his level. Imam Shafi'i eventually has his own madhhab and he was the student of Malik. Imam Ahmed was a student of Malik by default because Ahmed studied with Imam Shafi'i, Imam Shafi'i studied with Imam Malik and just as we have a nesb, a lineage with our parents we also have a spiritual lineage with our teachers. So the teacher of our teachers are our teachers in our lineage. And Imam Ahmed used to love Imam Malik who's his grandfather in teacher. His father in teaching was Shafi'i, his grandfather's Malik. And Imam Ahmed used to say that if you find anyone who does not like Malik, who has criticism of Malik know that that person is an innovator, is a bidri. And one of the reasons, he's not just saying this out of emotion he's saying this because he knew of Imam Malik's strict adherence to the sunnah. And Imam Malik was known to often say وخير الأمور ما كان سنة وشر الأمور المحدثات البداع The best of actions and the best of things are sunnah and the worst of things are the new innovative matters. So Imam Ahmed knew that Imam Malik was strict in his adherence to the sunnah and so if you dislike a person who's strict in their adherence to the sunnah what is that saying about your relationship with the sunnah of the Messenger of Allah SAW? The lesson that we should get from Malik's adherence to the sunnah is that as we learn as students that we too have a strict holding onto the sunnah and that we have a dislike and a contempt for things that have been innovated into our religion. During the time of Al-Mansur he was flogged and I can't go into the entire story but during the time of the governorship the rule of Al-Mansur there was a governor in Medina and this is a long story but basically he was forcing people to pledge allegiance to him and people asked Imam Malik about this and he narrated the hadith لا طلاق في إغلاق There is no divorce under compulsion and he was showing them that it's not binding any contracts that are made under compulsion The governor was so angry at Imam Malik that he had him whipped and beaten in public to the point that Imam Malik could not lift his arms nor could he walk they had to carry him home on a mule and some people wrongly believe that the Malik pray with their hands at their side because Imam Malik's arms were dislocated and so he could not put them right over left in the prayer but that's wrong because Imam Malik explicitly said that he found that the Sunnah according to his estimation and studying the lives of the Sahaba and how they prayed was to pray with the hands at their side and it had nothing to do with the beating of the governor The lesson that we should take is that Imam Malik did not go back from his hadith that he was mentioning even with the threat of being flogged and punished by the governor so we should stick by the lessons even if it can have repercussions During the time of Harun al-Rashid when the ruler Harun al-Rashid came to Medina after Hajj he asked Imam Malik to have a private lesson with him and Imam Malik said in his famous saying Knowledge is come to you come to knowledge, knowledge doesn't go to you and he was telling him Harun al-Rashid I'm not going to come with this special thing with this knowledge to you you come to the knowledge and so Harun al-Rashid said I'll come to your sitting but I want a front row seat and Imam Malik said no my front row seats are reserved for my most motivated and adamant students and you would have to have a place in the back Harun al-Rashid was humble and he came and he sat in the back of the classroom where Imam Malik was teaching This shows us as well as students that we should have respect for knowledge and not allow other people whether they are wealthy or powerful or so forth take away from our respective knowledge when people would come to study with Malik he would ask do you want fiqh or hadith and he would have respect in teaching both of them but especially in teaching hadith because now he's teaching the words of the person he loves the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and the person we should all have a deep love for so if the person said I'm coming to study hadith Imam Malik would leave the sitting, the majlis he would go put on his best clothes take a full ghusl, a full shower where his best perfumes didn't come and sit and they said he would not move around and be fidgety or do anything until he completed the hadith of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam to the point that one time his students said we saw your face get a little bit tense during the narration of hadith he said yes because there was a scorpion in my khuf and it had stung me numerous times and the scorpions of the hijaz of the Arabian Peninsula are known to be very very lethal at times and Imam Malik didn't even allow that to change his status as he's narrating the hadith of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam again another lesson for us as seekers of knowledge to have this respect for the knowledge and Imam Malik also had a deep respect for the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam and his city he never left Medina except to do the hajj and then he came back to Medina Al-Mansur offered him 3,000 dinars and a position if he moved to Baghdad and the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam Malik said he would never leave the city of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam he never rode his mule in Medina if he had to ride an animal he would take it outside of the city limits and ride it outside he never wore his shoes in Medina he walked barefoot in Medina out of respect for the city of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam another thing that he disliked Imam Malik and this is a very important thing for seekers of knowledge to understand is not only did he have a dislike of bid'a but especially in matters of aqidah a man came into Imam Malik sitting one time and he asked him about the istiwa about the istiwa that is mentioned in the Quran that says Allah made istiwa and so he said what is this istiwa and Imam Malik said in the famous saying he said we know the istiwa it's mentioned in the Quran and how it happens is incomprehensible it doesn't make sense and we have to believe in it and asking about this is bid'a give him out of here and he had his students take that person out of there because he said this is not a sunnah of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam to be delving into this matter and so he left the matters of aqidah at a very we accept them but we don't delve into things that the messenger of Allah didn't teach us to go into so as students we should not delve into things especially matters of aqidah that are not things that we should delve into based on the sunnah of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam to end I'll mention also that Imam Malik while he was narrating hadith at times he himself would narrate at times he would have a student of his narrate the hadith of the muattah of his book of hadith that he had collected Imam Malik's daughter was also very learned she had studied with her father and she had memorized the muattah and at times she would sit at an edge of the classroom right behind the door and as described or even Imam Malik was if he was actually a student was narrating and she heard a mistake she would knock on the door and Imam Malik knew that was the Q that she picked up a mistake and she would have the student correct the mistake but this just shows you if Imam Malik had trained his daughter to be a backup in his gatherings and he was the scholar of Medina that everybody is going to find and Imam al-Shawi said he didn't find anybody like Malik and he named a few other scholars this is Malik and his I won't say substitute but his backup is his daughter so what does that tell us for seekers of knowledge that we should make sure that we have knowledge in our families and teaching our children and I've seen this personally in my life where if a teacher or a serious student takes concern with their children their children will follow in their footsteps but if the teacher or the serious student takes concern with the community and leaves their children with no instructions and no guidelines for the most part that their children will have very difficult times following in the footsteps of their father and we should remember the saying beware of the cobbler's son who has no shoes or beware of becoming like the cobbler whose son has no shoes we're out there fixing the shoes of other people but our children are left but Imam Malik made sure that his children were learning the daughter who was known for hadith but it was his daughter who was in the room as a backup for the students as they narrated the hadith and so we'll end on that and actually the last thing I'll end on is one time there was a delegation that came from a far distance to Imam Malik and they asked him 48 questions to 32 of those questions he said I don't know and they were amazed that Imam Malik would say this and they had heard many things about him but he was reaffirming to all of us to the people that were there and all of us if we don't have knowledge about something then we should say silent and say I don't know so for the seeker of knowledge if you don't know something be honored to say I don't know we ask Allah SWT to make us from the people that follow the Sunnah of the Messenger of Allah Imam Malik M. 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