الموطأّل مالك-ابن كثير

al-Muwatta' li-al-Imam Malik

One of the earliest, most influential and most celebrated works of Ḥadīth and Fiqh, compiled by Imām Mālik ibn Anas al-Aṣbaḥī (93–179 AH), the Imām of Madinah and founder of the Mālikī school. Al-Muwaṭṭaʾ occupies a distinctive place in Islamic scholarship: it is simultaneously a collection of Prophetic traditions, a record of the legal heritage of the Companions and Tābiʿūn, and an early exposition of the juristic tradition of Madinah.

Unlike later collections devoted principally to marfūʿ Prophetic aḥādīth, the Muwaṭṭaʾ deliberately brings together several layers of evidence. Alongside aḥādīth of the Prophet ﷺ, Mālik records statements and legal decisions of the Companions, fatāwā of the Tābiʿūn, the practice of the scholars of Madinah, and his own juristic conclusions. These are arranged according to the chapters of Fiqh, from prayer, purification and Zakāh through transactions, marriage, judiciary and other areas of Islamic law. It therefore offers an unusually direct window into the close relationship between Ḥadīth transmission and the formation of early Islamic jurisprudence.

The Muwaṭṭaʾ was transmitted from Imām Mālik through numerous students, producing a number of recensions with differences in arrangement, wording and the number of reports included. This Dār Ibn Kathīr edition presents the famous recension of Yaḥyā ibn Yaḥyā al-Laythī al-Andalusī (d. 234 AH), which became the predominant recension of the work in the Islamic West and the basis of many of its great commentaries. Classical sources record that approximately twenty—and according to some accounts around thirty—recensions of the Muwaṭṭaʾ were known, illustrating the breadth of its early transmission.

The recension of Yaḥyā al-Laythī acquired particular prominence in al-Andalus and the Maghrib. Yaḥyā travelled from al-Andalus to study with Mālik in Madinah and was among the later students to receive the Muwaṭṭaʾ from him. Its subsequent diffusion through Yaḥyā played an important role in the spread of Mālikī learning in the western Islamic lands, and major works such as Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr's studies of the Muwaṭṭaʾ and Ibn al-ʿArabī's al-Masālik engage extensively with this recension.

The book's significance extends far beyond Mālikī Fiqh. Its early date, generally short and elevated isnāds, preservation of the learning of Madinah, and combination of transmitted reports with juristic practice make it a foundational source for students of Ḥadīth, Fiqh al-Ḥadīth, early Islamic law and the development of the madhāhib. It subsequently generated an enormous commentarial tradition, including such major works as Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr's al-Tamhīd and al-Istidhkār, al-Bājī's al-Muntaqā, and al-Zurqānī's Sharḥ al-Muwaṭṭaʾ.

This handsome Dār Ibn Kathīr edition of the recension of Yaḥyā ibn Yaḥyā al-Laythī has been critically prepared, referenced and annotated by Muḥammad Ṣubḥī ibn Ḥasan Ḥallāq. The text is fully vocalised, printed in colour on cream paper, and supplied in a single large hardback volume. The current third edition (1445 AH / 2024 CE) comprises 967 pages