Al-Muwatta

The first formulation of Islamic Law based on the behaviour of the people of Madinah during the time of the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, and the great Companions, Al-Muwatta is the blueprint for a just and radiant society: the earliest, clearest, cleanest record of salafi Islam. It is the first of the sahih works, long pre-dating al-Bukhari and Muslim. In addition, the Muwaa a a' contains a record of the practice ('amal) of the people of MadA nah of the first generations, a transmission of the ethos that permeated the city, and ImA m MA lik's painstaking clarification of the Sunna, the a adA ths, the practice and legal judgements. Imam MA lik's (93 AH/711 CE - 179 AH/795 CE) full name is MA lik ibn Anas ibn MA lik ibn AbA 'A mir al-Aa baa A and he was related to DhA Aa baa , a sub-tribe of a imyar. He was instructed in the learning and recitation of the Noble Qur'A n by ImA m NA fi' ibn 'Abd ar-Raa mA n ibn AbA Nu'aym, the ImA m of the reciters of MadA na and one of the 'seven reciters'. Among the huge number of his teachers in a adA th and fiqh were NA fi', the mawlA of 'AbdullA h ibn 'Umar, and Ibn ShihA b az-ZuhrA . He sat to give fatwA when he was seventeen years old after seventy ImA ms had testified that he was worthy to give fatwA and teach. His own students included ImA m ash-ShA fi'A and ImA m Muhammad ibn al-a asan ash-ShaybA nA the a anafA mujtahid, as well as a great number of ImA ms of a adA th and fiqh, and thus he is known as ImA m al-A'immah 'the ImA m of the ImA ms'. He is recognised to be the subject of the hadith from AbA Hurayra: "e;The Messenger of Allah, peace be upon him said, 'There will come a time when the people will beat the livers of their camels in search of knowledge and they will not find an 'A lim with more knowledge than the 'A lim of MadA na.'"e;Aisha Abdurrahman Bewley is one of today's most prolific translators of classical Arabic works into English. For more than thirty-five years she has been concerned with making the contents of many classical Arabic works more accessible to English-speaking readers. She is co-translator, with her husband Shaykh Abdalhaqq Bewley, of The Noble Qur'an, a New Rendering of its Meaning in English. Other works include her translation of The Meaning of Man of Sidi Ali al-Jamal, Muhammad Messenger of Allah - ash-Shifa of Qadi 'Iyad, Muhammad ibn Sa'd's Kitab at-Tabaqat al-Kabir, and of her own authorship: Mu'awiya - Restorer of the Muslim Faith, A Glossary of Islamic Terms, Islam: The Empowering of Women and Muslim Women, a Biographical Dictionary.