Maliki Matters

Well there's some new Maliki madhhab material to be found out there in Cyberspace, and I'm going to put some out there myself as well. Although the material that I have certainly isn't new, it's not well known out of Maliki polemical circles—those downtrodden souls who have to defend praying with their arms at their sides in a world of seemingly ever-present hadith-bombers.

In regards to new material, Lamppost Productions—that beacon of Maliki knowledge—has recently posted Prayer and Purification according to the Maaliki School of Islamic Jurisprudence, by Abdullah bin Hamid Ali. Keep a close eye on this site, since their list of forthcoming, insha'llah, materials is rather tantalizing considering that it includes such titles as The Sunnah of Dhikr Beads in Rebuttal to Sheikh Albaani and Ibn Taimiyah's Defense of the Four Imams. In addition to all this, Sidi Abdullah bin Hamid Ali has a forthcoming translation of Ibn al-Jawzi's Daf' Shubah al-Tashbh bi Akaff al-Tanzih as well, which is expected out sometime in 2006. It's entitled The Attributes of God and is being published by Sidi Aftab Malik's Amal Press.

Additionally, there's a new Yahoo! group called [MalikiFiqhGroup] that has a wealth of information in its files section, including not only Maliki-specific materials but a highly analytical and proof-based blockbuster of an article entitled The Sunni Belief About the Graves of the Blessed Awliya' of Allah, which I've uploaded here for easy access. It's a translation of some responses to questions which were fielded by the late Shaykh as-Sayyid Muhammad ibn `Alawi al-Maliki—and it's certainly not just his "al-Maliki" appellation that endears him to us. Before reading this article, I suggest putting any pre-conceived notions and takfiri tendencies to rest, otherwise it might end up being too large a dose of the painful truth.

The subject of possibly distasteful polemics serves as a nice lead-in for announcing the fact that I've uploaded a twenty-six page article by Dr. Sherman A. Jackson entitled Setting the Record Straight: Ibn al-Labbad's Refutation of al-Shafi'i [2,661 KB Adobe Acrobat file]. Please be aware that I've done this in the spirit of honest intellectual inquiry, not to fan the flames of inter-madhhab rivalry, and thus to defend the positions of the often misunderstood madhhab to which I adhere. This is a madhhab which adheres to the view that the muttawatir actions of the Ahl al-Madinah were often a more sound repository of the actual and final sunna practices than uncontextualized ahad hadiths.

Unfortunately, the article demonstrates that reluctance to appeal to the 'amal of the Ahl al-Madinah in the face of hadith evidence was a trap that some Maliki scholars fell into—a slip which essentially made them unwitting crypto-Shafi'is. This, I felt, was the most beneficial realization and fascinating aspect of the article. Although I agree (which is not meant to imply that my unqualified opinion matters) with Dr. Jackson that Ibn al-Labbad's (born 250/864, died 333/944) argumentation on specific points is "forceful and in most instances convincing", it's the big picture of his methodology that exposes light on a hidden danger that all Malikis need to be aware of.

As Sherman Jackson explains, in employing hadith to refute the Shafi'is, the young Ibn al-Labbad downplays the Maliki distinction between sunna and hadith. He thus unwittingly falling into "Shafi'ism"—by which is meant "the tendency to conflate sunna with hadith". Although it's made clear [page 145] that, overall, Ibn al-Labbad "was not completely disabused of the proto-Maliki approach, he did see it as something of a liability in anti-Shafi'i polemics". And it seems that he wasn't the only Maliki to do so, since others eventually moved further away from employing the Madinan 'amal as a proof when "pressure from non-Maliki opponents began to mount", as Dr. Jackson explains [page 141-142]:

Elsewhere I have alluded to the growing hegemony of 'Shafi'ism'
by virtue of which later Maliki apologists tended to ignore or play
down such sources as Madinan practice ('amal) and explain Malik's
doctrine purely in terms of hadith. In a more direct fashion, Yasin
Dutton has also drawn attention to this phenomenon, giving a well-
documented example of it in the case of the Maliki position on
sadl (holding one's hands at one's sides during prayer). Dutton's
example actually goes beyond the issue of merely justifying Malik's
fiqh and shows the extent to which later Maliki jurists were actually
willing to abandon a Maliki position that had been based on the
early Maliki concept of sunna in favour of hadith that contradicted
this position. What we find in Ibn al-Labbad is thus perhaps the
embryonic stages of a tendency whose dénouement is reflected in the
activity of these later Malikis referred to by Dutton.

On that note, I encourage everyone to read Yasin Dutton's exquisite Origins of Islamic Law: The Qur'an, the Muwatta' and Madinan 'Amal as well as The Maaliki Argument for Not Clasping the Hands in Salat, by Sidi Abdullah bin Hamid Ali. Insha'llah, there will be more of such materials to come for those of use who staunchly adhere to the Malikite rite.

Sadl On...