Mālik b. Anas

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Mālik b. Anas (d. 795 (AH 179)). Author of Kitāb al-Muwaṭṭa, one of the earliest surviving Muslim lawbooks. It records Islam as practised in Madīina. Mālik was sensitive to the untrustworthy ways in which sunna was being produced, and for that reason allowed istiṣlāh to overrule a deduction from Qur'ān and sunna. Mālikites are therefore intermediate between Hanifites and Shāfiʿites.