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    Plan détaillé Texte intégral Representations of Ibn al‑Qāsim in Mamluk times Ibn al-Qāsim’s works, his contribution to the Mālikī legal school, and his opponents Ibn al-Qāsim’s success Notes de bas de page Auteur

    Mers et rivages d’Islam

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    Ibn al-Qāsim (d. 191/806), the Egyptian Student of Mālik b. Anas: a Preliminary Survey

    Maribel Fierro

    p. 333-352

    Texte intégral Representations of Ibn al‑Qāsim in Mamluk times Mālikī sources Non-Mālikī sources Ibn al-Qāsim’s works, his contribution to the Mālikī legal school, and his opponents Ibn al-Qāsim’s success Notes de bas de page Auteur

    Texte intégral

    1The Egyptian Ibn al-Qāsim (d. 191/806) – a student of Medina’s Mālik b. Anas (d. 179/795), considered the founder of the Mālikī legal school – played a crucial role in the history of this maḏhab. His transmissions from Mālik and his own legal opinions form the bulk of the two foundational Mālikī texts in North Africa and al-Andalus: Saḥnūn’s (d. 240/854) al-Mudawwana and al-ʿUtbī’s (d. 255/869) al-Mustaḫrağa.1 Ibn al-Qāsim is omnipresent in Mālikī fiqh, but at the same time he is a somewhat controversial figure, as his teachings were based on raʾy (authoritative legal opinion), and dealt very little with ḥadīṯ.2 This made him an easy target for attacks by jurists, especially from the Šāfiʿī school, but also others, most notably Ibn Ḥazm (d. 456/1064) of Cordoba, a Ẓāhirī. For him, the main weakness of Mālikism was the fact that it was largely based on Ibn al-Qāsim’s personal opinion and free judgement, and the analogy he applied to the doctrines of Mālik.3 It is not possible to ignore Ibn al-Qāsim when dealing with the emergence of the Mālikī legal school, but later generations had to confront the fact that his legal reasoning and doctrines did not conform to the standards that eventually prevailed. Indeed, his work is characterized not only by the absence of ḥadīṯ, but also by a casuistic approach with no apparent attempt at generalization and systematization. This became especially problematic following the teachings of the jurist al-Šāfiʿī (d. 204/820), who accorded a prominent position to ḥadīṯ in legal discourse and developed a systematic approach to how law was to be deduced from the revealed sources.4 Ibn al-Qāsim fell short of such standards and, moreover, was regarded as a mere transmitter of Mālik’s opinions, who was therefore undeserving of any specific attention in his own right. These seem to be the reasons why, despite his massive influence on the history of Mālikism, no monographic study has yet been devoted to him and his legal approach.5 Such a study would allow us to understand better not only Ibn al-Qāsim as a jurist, but also the nature of raʾy itself, as there is likewise no monograph on raʾy, despite its importance in the early period. Moreover, Ibn al-Qāsim’s juristic dicta (aqwāl)6 offer important materials regarding legal discussions and social practices in early Islamic Egypt.7

    2Ibn al-Qāsim can be studied from a variety of angles. Miklos Muranyi and Jonathan Brockopp have advanced our knowledge of Ibn al-Qāsim’s work and that of his milieu by analyzing the manuscript materials at our disposal, as it is through such materials that part of the information found in biographical sources can be ascertained.8 The present contribution is part of my research on the history of the Mālikī legal school from the 8th to the 15th century, which will include other studies centred on biographical and narrative accounts about Ibn al-Qāsim. My aims are twofold: first, to analyse how he was represented both within and outside the Mālikī legal school, and second, to assess the extent to which the biographical materials about him allow us to understand why he became such an attractive teacher for knowledge-seeking Ifriqiyan and Andalusi travellers. In the present paper, I will concentrate on sources from the Mamluk period (648/1250–923/1517) as regards the first aim,9 and present some preliminary conclusions as regards the second.

    Representations of Ibn al‑Qāsim in Mamluk times

    Mālikī sources

    3In his biographical dictionary of Mālikī scholars, the Medinese jurist of Maġribi origin Ibn Farḥūn (d. 799/1397) starts by qualifying Abū ʿAbd Allāh ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. al-Qāsim b. Ḫālid b. Ğunāda al-ʿUtaqī (128/745 or 132/749–191/806) as “the renowned imam” (al-imām al-mašhūr).10 He includes information about the slave origins of his ancestors;11 about Ibn al-Qāsim’s teachers in Egypt and Medina;12 about his Egyptian, Maġribi and Andalusi students;13 and about the fact that al-Buḫārī (194/810–256/870) quoted from him in his Ṣaḥīḥ. This information is then followed by a list of all the good things reported about Ibn al-Qāsim. Thus, Ibn al-Qāsim’s teacher, Mālik, compared him to a sack full of musk and characterized him as a jurist (faqīh) in contrast to his other famous Egyptian student, Ibn Wahb (115/733 or 125/743–197/813), whom he characterized as ʿālim because of his interest in ḥadīṯ. On his part, al-Nasāʾī (d. 303/905) considered Ibn al-Qāsim to be trustworthy (ṯiqa). He said that he was at his best when transmitting from Mālik, never contradicting him (laysa yaḫtalifu fī kalima), that his recension of the Muwaṭṭaʾ was the most reliable, and that he was the most accomplished student of Mālik, superior to another Egyptian student of his, Ašhab b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz (145/762–204/819). Ibn al-Qāsim, he reports, was astonishing because of his virtue and asceticism, the reliability of his transmission, and the integrity of his dirāya and ḥadīṯ.14 Al-Dāraquṭnī (305/918–385/995) qualified Ibn al-Qāsim as one of the great Egyptian jurists, being pious, humble and rigorous. He likewise singled out Ibn al-Qāsim as the best teacher for one trying to master Mālik’s fiqh, as he was a specialist on the subject. The Iraqi Mālikī jurist Qāḍī ʿAbd al-Wahhāb al-Baġdādī (362/973–422/1031) gave preponderance to Saḥnūn’s (d. 240/854) legal questions in the Mudawwana.15 He based this decision on the fact that Saḥnūn transmitted Mālik via Ibn al-Qāsim, who did not mix his teacher’s doctrines with those of anybody else except in a few isolated cases. All of this added, in the Iraqi jurist’s opinion, to Ibn al-Qāsim’s virtue and religious knowledge (al-faḍl wa-l-ʿilm). Yaḥyā b. Yaḥyā al-Layṯī (d. 234/849) of Cordoba, author of the most widespread riwāya of Mālik’s Muwaṭṭaʾ, described Ibn al-Qāsim as the one who most thoroughly mastered Mālik’s ʿilm. Ibn Ḥāriṯ al-Ḫušanī (d. 361/971) also characterized Ibn al-Qāsim as the most well-versed in the legal doctrines (maḏhab) of Mālik, stating that he had heard his teachers praise Ibn al-Qāsim’s knowledge on sales law (ʿilm al-buyūʿ) above that of all Mālik’s other companions. Ibn al-Qāsim’s student al-Ḥāriṯ b. Miskīn (d. 250/864) said of him that he possessed religious knowledge (ʿilm), asceticism (zuhd), liberality and courage, and that his prayers were answered by God.

    4As regards his intellectual activity, Ibn Farḥūn records that the Cordoban scholar Aḥmad b. Ḫālid (246/860–322/934) stated that Ibn al-Qāsim only had the Muwaṭṭaʾ and his samāʿ from Mālik in twenty books (kitāb), those dealing with sales being the most relevant.16 Aḥmad b. Ḫālid also recorded what another student of Mālik, Ašhab b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz al-Qaysī, said about Ibn al-Qāsim. This Ašhab b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz had a tense relationship with Ibn al-Qāsim, but it did not impede him from telling the truth about the latter. Asked his opinion about his older contemporaries Ibn al-Qāsim and Ibn Wahb, Ašhab answered that one severed foot of Ibn al-Qāsim would be better-versed in fiqh than all of Ibn Wahb. Ibn al-Qāsim combined ʿilm with scrupulous avoidance of everything that was not licit (waraʿ). Another of his merits was that he did not receive anything from those in power (ğawāʾiz al-sulṭān), and, finally, Ibn Farḥūn records that Ibn al-Qāsim studied with Mālik for twenty years.

    5Another Mālikī scholar writing around the same time as Ibn Farḥūn, Ibn Ḫaldūn (d. 808/1406), a Maġribi who settled in Egypt in the last part of his life, mentioned Ibn al-Qāsim in his Muqaddima as one of the Mālikī scholars who had been active in Egypt.17 Ibn al-Qāsim appears in this work as a minor figure, someone only relevant as the link between two towering jurists, Mālik and the North African Saḥnūn, or Mālik and the Andalusi ʿAbd al-Malik b. Ḥabīb (d. 238/853).18 This shadowy presence has been highlighted by Wesley Thiessen in his analysis of some of the manuscripts of the Mudawwana, stating that in them Ibn al-Qāsim is an indispensable part of the transmission, but the rendering of “his name in a smaller script and with no sense of prominence whatsoever on the title page seems to give him a place of lesser honour”.19

    6Al-Rāʿī al-Ġarnāṭī (d. 853/1450) was an Andalusi who settled in Mamluk Egypt not long after Ibn Ḫaldūn’s time. In his Intiṣār al-faqīr al-sālik li-tarğīḥ maḏhab al-imām al-kabīr Mālik, a compendium of arguments in favour of Mālikī superiority over the other legal schools, he mentions Ibn al-Qāsim more than any other of Mālik’s students.20 Ibn al-Qāsim’s function is almost exclusively that of Mālik’s transmitter, but he is given his due as such, and not overlooked as a mere intermediary between Mālik and Saḥnūn.21 Thus, we are told that a pious person saw the Prophet in a dream and asked him which one among the maḏāhib he should follow and the answer was that of Mālik. The man then mentioned that within this maḏhab there were many different doctrines (aqwāl), to which the Prophet replied that he should follow those of Ibn al-Qāsim.22 Ibn al-Qāsim’s piety is also highlighted (e.g. whenever he mentioned the name of the Prophet he grew pale and stuttered, overcome with awe), and al-Rāʿī al-Ġarnāṭī devotes a whole section to recording his asceticism and scrupulousness, just like Ibn Farḥūn did before him, as we have seen. Ibn al-Qāsim’s importance as a teacher is emphasized by mentioning his most important North African students, Asad b. al-Furāt and Saḥnūn.23

    7Ibn Farḥūn, Ibn Ḫaldūn and al-Rāʿī al-Ġarnāṭī lived during the Mamluk period, which saw a revival of Mālikism in Egypt. There was, then, a noticeable and influential Egyptian production of Mālikī legal literature that continued the activity started under the Ayyubids within the process of “Sunnitization” of Fatimid Egypt. Two major works of Mālikī positive law (furūʿ) were written in Egypt between the 6th/12th-7th/13th centuries. Ibn Šāš al-Ğuḏāmī (d. 616/1219) wrote the Kitāb al-ğawāhir al-ṯamīna24 and al-Qarāfī (626/1228–684/1285) wrote al-Ḏaḫīra.25 They both made abundant use of Andalusi and North African Mālikī sources that must have been circulating in Egypt at the time. In both works, Ibn al-Qāsim is the most quoted jurist after Mālik, followed by Ašhab and Ibn Wahb.26

    8Ibn al-Qāsim’s crucial role in the formative period of the Mālikī legal school was thus still acknowledged in Egypt five centuries after his death. The fact that his transmissions consisted mostly of raʾy with very little ḥadīṯ27 may have been a source of dispute, especially when Mālikīs had polemical encounters with jurists from the Šāfiʿī school. Even if Ibn Ḫaldūn thought of Ibn al-Qāsim as a minor figure compared to others, he still conveyed his crucial role as a transmitter, so that these works from Mamluk times show no attempt to marginalize Ibn al-Qāsim. There is, however, some evidence that this was perhaps not always the case.

    9In 665/1265, the Mamluk sultan Baybars granted representation to the four Sunni schools of law, entitling each of them to have their own chief judge. Baybars first established this system in Cairo, followed by Damascus, Aleppo, Tripoli and Hama.28 This was the context in which the Muḫtaṣar-s that summarized and systematized the doctrines of the legal schools became increasingly popular. In the case of Mālikism, the most famous examples were the works produced by the Egyptian Mālikīs Ibn al-Ḥāğib (d. 646/1249) and Ḫalīl b. Isḥāq al-Ğundī (d. 776/1374).29 Both works’ synthesis of Mālikī legal doctrine earned them great support among Mālikīs everywhere (especially in the case of Ḫalīl), not only in the authors’ own time but also in later periods. Although the concise nature of such works did not leave much space to record the authorities behind the doctrines, names such as Ibn al-Qāsim are still mentioned, especially when dealing with cases of legal divergence (iḫtilāf) within the school. However, some jurists and judges may have preferred doctrines espoused by later authorities over those backed by early ones such as Ibn al-Qāsim. Indeed, voices were raised against this trend, insisting that the Mamluk judges of each specific maḏhab were bound to follow the established view of their school, irrespective of their own opinions and preferences. One Ḥanafī chief qāḍī, al-Ṭarsūsī (d. 758/1357), stated that judges must rule only according to the current view of their schools, and that the Mālikīs must follow the opinions attributed to Ibn al-Qāsim, disregarding later opinions such as those espoused by the Andalusi Abū ʿUmar Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr (368/978–463/1071) or the Egyptian al-Qarāfī.30 This suggests that some of Ibn al-Qāsim’s legal opinions were being challenged or abandoned in Mamluk Egypt.31

    10But what about representations of Ibn al-Qāsim among non-Mālikī authors in Mamluk times?

    Non-Mālikī sources

    11Al-Rāʿī al-Ġarnāṭī records some unpleasant comments said by the Šāfiʿīs about the Mālikīs, and vice versa.32 Such attacks capture the context of inter-maḏhab competition that existed in Mamluk times under the system of the four judgeships. However, criticism against Mālikīs and Mālikism was nothing new. It was rather a long-established tradition, especially among Šāfiʿīs, but also Ḥanafīs. As studied by Robert Brunschvig, the main points of attack were Mālikī preference for the ʿamal of Medina, even against ḥadīṯ, and the heavy reliance on raʾy in the foundational texts of the Mālikī legal school.33 Ibn al-Qāsim stood at the centre of such criticism, as shown in the writings of Ibn Taymiyya (d. 728/1328), a Ḥanbalī.

    12In a tract entitled Ṣiḥḥat maḏhab ahl al-Madīna, Ibn Taymiyya has good things to say about Mālik and Medina, but only bad things to say about Ibn al-Qāsim.34 After explaining why and in which cases the consensus of the people of Medina can be taken as evidence, Ibn Taymiyya states that in early times the people of all cities with the exception of Kufa followed the people of Medina in their religious knowledge, as they viewed them as superior:

    This is why the school of the people of Madina prevailed in those cities. The people of Egypt became supporters of the position of the people of Madina and Egypt was the home of many important Malikis, like Ibn Wahb, Ibn al-Qasim, Ašhab, and ʿAbdullah ibn ʿAbdu’l-Hakam… They have well-known transmissions from Malik.35

    13Ibn Taymiyya also explains that Muslims did not start to organise their transmission of Prophetic ḥadīṯ in book form until the time of the Followers of the Followers. Mālik was among the first to do so, writing his book, al-Muwaṭṭaʾ, “in the manner of the scholars who wrote at that time”,36 and filling it either with the ḥadīṯ of the people of Medina or with their consensus. As for questions where the people of Medina and others differed, Mālik himself would choose a position, stating: “This is the best of what I have heard”, i.e. he followed what the most knowledgeable men of Medina had accepted.37 Subsequently, the Muwaṭṭaʾ “spread throughout the land until there was no book after the Qur’an at that time known to have a greater dissemination than [it]”.38 However, not all of Mālik’s students were true to the doctrines he espoused in the Muwaṭṭaʾ, as in the case of Ibn al-Qāsim’s doctrine on raising one’s hands during prayer. He went so far as to depart from Mālik’s teachings in the Muwaṭṭaʾ, adopting instead a doctrine similar to that of the Iraqis/Ḥanafīs.39

    14This leads Ibn Taymiyya to relate the story of why Ibn al-Qāsim’s positions at times appeared more akin to those of the Ḥanafīs:

    It is known that the reason for the writing of the Mudawwana of Ibn al-Qasim was the Questions of Asad ibn al-Furat which he derived from the people of Iraq. Then Asad asked Ibn al-Qasim about them and he replied to him either with a direct transmission from Malik or sometimes with an analogy [qiyās] based on his words. Its means of transmission was Sahnun. This is why the words of Ibn al-Qasim contain a bias towards the words of the people of Iraq, even if that is not one of the bases of the people of Madina.40

    15Thus, in this account, the Mudawwana had different textual layers, the first being the work of Asad b. al-Furāt (d. 213/828), al-Asadiyya, which was based on Ḥanafī answers to legal questions. At a later date, this text was in turn adapted to a Mālikī understanding of the legal issues. This story can be traced back to an early source, Abū Zurʿa al-Rāzī (d. 264/878).41 Later on, it was transmitted by the Mālikī Ibn Ḥāriṯ al-Ḫušanī (d. 361/971), quoted by Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ, and by the Šāfiʿī al-Šīrāzī (d. 476/1083).42

    16Ibn Taymiyya further explains that the legal school of Mālik spread throughout al-Andalus via Yaḥyā ibn Yaḥyā al-Layṯī (already mentioned as the transmitter of the most widespread recension of Mālik’s Muwaṭṭaʾ), who held an official administrative position there.43 The rulers or governors (wulāt) consulted him and, on his advice, ordered the qāḍī-s to judge first according to his transmission from Mālik and then according to other transmissions.44 As a result, Ibn al-Qāsim’s transmission of Mālik spread, and became predominant in the school because it was acted upon. It became such a trusted source that Mālikīs began to abandon the transmission of the Muwaṭṭaʾ in favour of Ibn al-Qāsim’s raʾy, even over the objections of one faction of eminent Mālikī jurists (ṭāʾifa min aʾimmat al‑mālikiyya).45

    17Ibn Taymiyya also refers to al-Šāfiʿī’s book against Ibn al-Qāsim, al-Imlāʾ ʿalā masāʾil Ibn al-Qāsim, praising al-Šāfiʿī for having followed the ḥadīṯ-s he considered to be sound, in contrast to the approach of Mālik’s Egyptian followers. Here Ibn Taymiyya makes reference to another Egyptian Mālikī, a younger contemporary of Ibn al-Qāsim named ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbd al-Ḥakam al-Miṣrī (155/772–214/829), who hosted al-Šāfiʿī when he arrived in Cairo.46 Ibn Taymiyya quotes him as telling his son Muḥammad (d. 268/882):

    “My son, keep the company of this man [i.e. al-Šāfiʿī], because he knows many [different ways of deriving] legal proofs; for if you were to leave this country and say [as evidence in a legal debate], ʿIbn al-Qāsim said [so]’, you would be laughed at”. Muḥammad said, “When I went to Iraq, I sat in a circle where Ibn Abī Duʾād sat and I said, ʿIbn al-Qāsim said’. He asked, ̔Who is Ibn al-Qāsim?’ I said, ‘A man who issues fatwā-s which are accepted from Egypt to the Maghreb’. He said, ‘May Allah have mercy on my father’”.47

    18For Ibn Taymiyya, the message of the story is clear: taqlīd, the custom of blindly following the authority of the masters of the past, must be abandoned.

    19Al-Ḏahabī (d. 748/1348), in spite of his teacher Ibn Taymiyya’s criticism of Ibn al-Qāsim, devoted a long biography to the Egyptian scholar in his Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ using materials mostly taken from Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ’s entry on Ibn al-Qāsim in Tartīb al-madārik. Emphasis is placed on Ibn al-Qāsim’s piety: for example, he recited the Qur’an all the way through twice a day, but would stop whenever a student requested to study with him. He travelled twelve times to the Ḥiğāz and every time spent one thousand dinars, which reflects the fact that he was well-off. Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ specifies that Ibn al-Qāsim’s father was enrolled in the dīwān (kāna abūhu fī l-dīwān), that is, he belonged to the ğund and was paid a salary (ʿaṭāʾ).48 The wealth of Ibn al-Qāsim’s family thus appears related, at least in part, to their connection with the army. Likewise, Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ also mentions the family’s proximity to those in power, i.e. the governors who ruled Egypt in the name of the ʿAbbasid caliphs (Ibn al-Qāsim was born around the time of the overthrow of the Umayyad caliphate).49

    20Al-Ḏahabī goes on to record various stories about Ibn al-Qāsim’s travels to Medina, some in the company of Ibn Wahb. We are told that one year one of them would ask Mālik questions, and the following year the other, which appears to be an attempt to explain the differences between their transmissions. Indeed, this is a recurrent issue that comes up in the biographies of Mālik’s Egyptian students, as they often taught diverging doctrines. Al-Ḏahabī also relays a number of Ibn al-Qāsim’s many recorded dreams, which seem to have played a significant role in his life. In one of them, for example, Ibn al-Qāsim earns his salvation in the next life for having led the life of ribāṭ, and for his Qur’an recitation – but not for his involvement with legal questions (masāʾil).

    21Al-Ḏahabī provides a detailed portrayal of Ibn al-Qāsim, almost as long as Ibn Farḥūn’s, unlike other much shorter entries by authors such as Ibn Ḫallikān (d. 681/1282).50 By putting the emphasis on Ibn al-Qāsim’s asceticism, waraʿ, inqibāḍ ʿan al-sulṭān and dreams, and by not including Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam’s criticism, al-Ḏahabī’s biography can overall be considered positive; a sort of “Love the sinner but hate the sin” would be one way of understanding this approach. The same can also be said of the much shorter biographical entry written by al-Šīrāzī, a Šāfiʿī.51 While in other biographies we do find direct criticism of Ibn al-Qāsim (for example, in that of Muḥammad b. ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbd al-Ḥakam), al-Ḏahabī limits himself to a toned-down criticism of Ibn al-Qāsim’s dedication to raʾy by denying that his masāʾil would have any bearing on his salvation in the next life.

    Ibn al-Qāsim’s works, his contribution to the Mālikī legal school, and his opponents

    22The earliest preserved biography of Ibn al-Qāsim is by al-Šīrāzī (d. 476/1083), in his Ṭabaqāt al-fuqahāʾ, which was to be followed over the coming centuries by several more: Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ (d. 544/1149) in Tartīb al-madārik; Ibn Ḫallikān (d. 681/1282) in Wafayāt al-aʿyān; al-Ḏahabī (d. 748/1348) in Taḏkirat al-ḥuffāẓ, al-ʿIbar, Taʾrīḫ al-islām and Siyar aʿlām al-nubalāʾ; al-Ṣafadī (d. 764/1362) in al-Wāfī bi-l-wafayāt; Ibn Farḥūn (d. 799/1397) in al-Dībāğ al-muḏhab; Ibn Ḥağar (d. 852/1449) in Tahḏīb al-tahḏīb; al-Suyūṭī (d. 911/1505) in Ḥuṣn al-muḥāḍara and Ṭabaqāt al-ḥuffāẓ; Ibn al-ʿImād (d. 1089/1679) in Šaḏarāt al-ḏahab and Maḫlūf (d. 1340/1921) in Šağarat al-nūr. Ibn al-Qāsim has thus been regularly taken into account through the centuries as a relevant figure in Islamic legal history in general, not only within the Mālikī school and not only in connection with Egypt and the Islamic West.

    23Before al-Šīrāzī’s biographical entry, Ibn al-Qāsim had already been discussed by al-Kindī (d. 350/961) in his Kitāb fī aʿyān mawālī Miṣr, as well as Abū Zurʿa (d. 264/878) in Kitāb al-ḍuʿafāʾ, al-Nasāʾī (d. 303/915),52 Ibn Abī Ḥātim al-Rāzī (d. 327/938) in al-Ğarḥ wa-l-taʿdīl, Ibn Ḥibbān (d. 354/965) in al-Ṯiqāt, and al-Dāraquṭnī (d. 385/995) in ʿIlal al-ḥadīṯ. Two of al-Šīrāzī’s contemporaries also took note of Ibn al-Qāsim: Abū ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-Barr (d. 463/1070) in al-Intiqāʾ fī faḍāʾil al-aʾimma al-ṯalātha al-fuqahāʾ, and Abū l-Walīd al-Bāğī (d. 474/1081) in al-Taʿdīl wa‑l‑tarğīḥ.53

    24Ibn al-Qāsim’s transmissions and teachings were preserved in a variety of ways:54

    • His samāʾ (audition) of Mālik is preserved in different versions, such as that found in a British Library ms., and those recorded in al-Mudawwana and al‑Mustaḫrağa.55
    • Al-Mağālis,56 the preserved manuscripts of which record prayer-related masāʾil compiling Ibn al-Qāsim’s own views as transmitted by his student al-Ḥāriṯ b. Miskīn. This work is quoted by Ibn Ḫayr al-Išbīlī (d. 575/1179) in his Fahrasa,57
    • Al-Masāʾil al-iskandariyya (lost), mentioned by the Andalusi al-Walīd b. Bakr b. Makhlad al-Ġamrī al-Fihrī al-Saraqusṭī (d. 392/1002) in his al-Tasmiya wa-l-ḥikāyāt ʿan nuẓarāʾ Mālik wa-aṣḥabihi wa-aṣḥāb aṣḥābihi.58
    • Al-Asadiyya, a legal compilation of Asad b. al-Furāt’s masāʾil (see above, note 41). The oldest mention of Ibn al-Qāsim’s involvement in its composition is found in Abū Zurʿa.59 Yaḥyā b. Yaḥyā al-Layṯī is said to have transmitted al-Kutub al-asadiyya by Ibn al-Qāsim.60 The multi-layered process involved in the composition and transmission of early legal texts explains why they could be variously attributed to the different scholars involved, according to the decision of who was speaking or writing.
    • Al-Mudawwana, attributed specifically to Ibn al-Qāsim, and not to Saḥnūn, by Ibn Taymiyya (as noted above), among others.
    • Ibn al-Qāsim’s riwāya of the Muwaṭṭaʾ, partially preserved and edited. It circulated widely in Ifrīqiya but very little in al-Andalus, where it is first mentioned in Ibn ʿAṭiyyaʼs (d. 541/1147) Fahrasa.61
    • According to al-Ġamrī, Ibn al-Qāsim also transmitted Mālik’s Kitāb al‑sirr.62

    25For the emerging scholarly world in Ifrīqiya and al-Andalus, Ibn al-Qāsim – as mentioned at the outset of this paper – was the most important mediator of Mālik’s legal doctrine, the intermediary source used by Saḥnūn in his Mudawwana and al-ʿUtbī in his Mustaḫrağa. However, as we have seen, this intermediary role tended to overshadow Ibn al-Qāsim’s own unique contribution. Still, some scholars chose to highlight his activity, for example by attributing the Mudawwana directly to him. There are other examples of this effort to acknowledge Ibn al-Qāsim’s active role as a scholar. As mentioned above, al-Šāfiʿī took Ibn al-Qāsim seriously enough to write a book refuting his legal approach (al-Imlāʾ ʿalā Masāʾil Ibn al-Qāsim). Yaḥyā b. ʿUmar b. Yūsuf b. ʿĀmir al-Kinānī al-Andalusī (213/828 or 223/838–289/902) wrote a Kitāb iḫtilāf Ibn al-Qāsim wa-Ašhab.63 Likewise, the Andalusi jurist Ibn Zarb (317/929 or 319/931–381/991) was nicknamed “Ibn al-Qāsim” because of his knowledge and religiosity.64 The Cordoban Ibn Abī Zamanīn (324/936–399/1008) in his Muntaḫab al-aḥkām, as studied by Daniel Vázquez Paluch, quoted Ibn al-Qāsim as an authority 214 times (37.6%) – more than even Mālik himself at 172 times (30.2%).65 Likewise, Abū ʿAlī b. Sahl al-Ḫušanī (d. ca. 560/1164) wrote a [Ğamʿ] mā waqaʿa fī l-Mudawwana min aqwāl Ibn al-Qāsim, a work that placed emphasis on Ibn al-Qāsim’s legal contribution.66

    26We have seen how Ibn Farḥūn quoted al-Nasāʾī saying that Ibn al-Qāsim never contradicted Mālik (laysa yaḫtalifu fī kalima). It may have been so in Ibn al-Qāsim’s limited activity as transmitter of ḥadīṯ, but even there we find some divergence. As Ibn Taymiyya pointed out, Ibn al-Qāsim diverged from Mālik on the issue of raising the hands during prayer, a discrepancy that involved preference for different Prophetic traditions.67 Divergence was more prominent as a result of Ibn al-Qāsim’s use of raʾy. He not only commented on, explained and added to Mālik’s teachings, but also criticized and differed with him, as has been pointed out by Muranyi in his study of Ibn al-Qāsim’s samāʾ.68 The existence of such discrepancies is the focus of a book written by the Andalusi al-Qāsim b. Khalaf al-Ğubayrī al-Ṭurṭūšī (312/925–371/981 or 378/988) entitled Kitāb al-tawassuṭ bayna Mālik wa-bn al-Qāsim fī l-masāʾil allatī ḫtalafā fīhā min masāʾil al-Mudawwana, also known as Kitāb al-tawassuṭ bayna Mālik wa-bn al-Qāsim fī mā ḫālafa Ibn al-Qāsim Mālik.69 This attempt at “finding the middle ground between Mālik and Ibn al-Qāsim on those issues from the Mudawwana on which they differed” represents, as studied by Vázquez Paluch, one of the first examples of an uṣūl al-fiqh approach in al-Andalus.70 Al-Ğubayrī took a number of issues from the Mudawwana where Ibn al-Qāsim differed from his teacher Mālik, and tried to justify both points of view with reference to Qur’an and ḥadīṯ. For him, such divergence demonstrated the limits of taqlīd:

    And this is ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. al-Qāsim, [Mālik’s] closest student, the one who most closely followed his views and accepted what he said regarding any issue he could not resolve himself yet he still differed from him. Even though he held no one in higher esteem than [Mālik] he could not bring himself to follow him when he came across an evidence that seemed correct to him.71

    27Divergence of opinions also existed between Ibn al-Qāsim and his contemporaries, especially the Egyptians Ibn Wahb and Ašhab, with a number of reports aimed at explaining their cause. These discrepancies gave rise to tensions among the Andalusi and North African scholars who transmitted the doctrines of these students of Mālik, with some trying – unsuccessfully – to check the increasingly privileged position of Ibn al-Qāsim’s teachings. In fact, just as some Mālikīs were highlighting Ibn al-Qāsim’s contributions and stressing that he was more than a mere mediator, other Mālikīs were busy attempting to marginalize him.

    28One such figure in Egypt was ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbd al-Ḥakam (d. 214/829),72 who did transmit some of Ibn al-Qāsim’s opinions, but sometimes merely to voice his disagreement with them. In any case he clearly preferred Ašhab’s views over Ibn al-Qāsim’s. We have already encountered ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbd al-Ḥakam: he was the one who warned his son that transmitting via Ibn al-Qāsim would only hurt his reputation. Importantly, this exchange took place at a moment when raʾy was coming under attack from scholars such as al-Šāfiʿī. However, ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbd al-Ḥakam did not trade raʾy for ḥadīṯ, but rather devised his own specific approach. He took as his starting point the fragmentary nature of the masāʾil genre, but then subjected such legal questions to a certain level of abstraction and reduced their number. ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbd al-Ḥakam’s production, in fact, consists of summaries (Muḫtaṣar-s) of Mālikī law, in three versions (kabīr, awsaṭ and ṣaġīr), of which two are extant: al-Muḫtaṣar al-kabīr and al-Muḫtaṣar al-ṣaġīr.73 His approach was thus quite different from that of Ibn al-Qāsim. Was this perhaps as a reaction against Ibn al-Qāsim’s massive compilation of masāʾil? This was not the only difference. The biographical dictionaries’ insistence on Ibn al-Qāsim’s inqibāḍ ʿan al-sulṭān contrasts with what was said about Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam, i.e. that “he had been willing to publicly drink and perform his ritual ablutions from a well of the ruler’s that the people had stopped using, for which Ibn Ṭulūn gave him a stipend”.74

    29Reticence towards Ibn al-Qāsim also characterized the Baghdadi branch of Mālikism. In the works of jurists such as Ismāʿīl b. Isḥāq al-Qāḍī (199/815–282/895), al-Abharī (287/900 or 289/902–375/985) and Ibn al-Ğallāb al-Baṣrī (d. 378/988), Ibn al-Qāsim is either not mentioned or his views are not central to the discussions.75

    30In the Islamic West, the greatest resistance to the teachings of Ibn al-Qāsim came from the Cordoban ʿAbd al-Malik b. Ḥabīb (d. 238/853), who, as Daniel Vázquez Paluch has shown, mentions Ibn al-Qāsim only four times in the preserved portion of al-Wāḍiḥa.76 Vázquez Paluch suggests that given that Ibn Ḥabīb’s most important teachers – Ibn al-Māğišūn (d. 212/827) and Muṭarrif (d. 220/835) – were both from Medina, they may have frowned upon an Egyptian like Ibn al-Qāsim becoming the most important transmitter of Medinese doctrine. Alternatively, they may have taken issue with Ibn al-Qāsim’s interpretation/transmission of Malik’s views. Ibn Ḥabīb himself may have been the one who disliked Ibn al-Qāsim because of his dominance in al-Andalus, especially because of the enmity that existed between himself and Yaḥyā b. Yaḥyā al-Layṯī, one of the main transmitters of Ibn al-Qāsim’s raʾy.77 Another scholar from Córdoba, Ibn Waḍḍāḥ (d. 287/900) – one of the scholars who introduced ʿilm al-ḥadīṯ in al-Andalus – said that Ašhab’s samāʿ was more precise and more correct than that of Ibn al-Qāsim.78 Abū ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-Barr described Ibn al-Qāsim as a jurist who was primarily concerned with raʾy and gave precedence to Ibn Wahb.79

    31More importantly, the Cordoban Umayyad caliph al-Ḥakam II (r. 350/961–366/976) charged some Mālikī scholars with the composition of a work collecting all the sayings of Mālik b. Anas, excluding those of his contemporaries and students. The title was Kitāb al-istīʿāb li-aqwāl Mālik muğarrada dūna aqwāl aṣḥābihi (also known as Taʾlīf fī asmiʿat ʿan Mālik). Although it was never completed and nothing of it seems to have been preserved, such an initiative is important in and of itself. This attempt at compiling the legal doctrine of Mālik without any interference from other voices points to a desire to establish the foundations of the Mālikī legal school on the uncontaminated teachings of its founder.80 And yet, there is also information indicating that al-Ḥakam II ordered Ibn al-Qāsim’s doctrines to be applied in judicial practice.81

    32Such examples of opposition to and criticism against Ibn al-Qāsim did not manage to undermine the standing he had gained during his lifetime among Ifriqiyan and Andalusi scholars, which was still extant in Mamluk times. What was the reason (or reasons) behind the attraction these early scholars from the Islamic West felt towards him?

    Ibn al-Qāsim’s success

    33Ibn al-Qāsim’s dominant position in the Mudawwana and the Mustaḫrağa is generally considered to have been the decisive factor in helping to cement his status as Mālik’s most important student and the foremost interpreter and mediator of his doctrine. Moreover, two of Ibn al-Qāsim’s students – Saḥnūn82 and Yaḥyā b. Yaḥyā – became highly influential figures in the Islamic West. Saḥnūn’s nomination as judge of Qayrawan meant that the legal doctrines he favoured were acted upon, as occurred in Cordoba as well, thanks to the influence of Yaḥyā b. Yaḥyā. The latter was never named judge. According to the sources this is because he rejected the position, but in fact as a Berber he could not have been appointed in the first place, since at that time Cordoban judges could only be ethnic Arabs. Nevertheless, despite this situation, he was the man behind the judge Saʿīd b. Muḥammad b. Bašīr al-Maʿāfirī (d. 210/825). Ibn Bašīr, a member of the Egyptian ğund based in Beja (present-day Portugal), is known for having stated that judges should only issue verdicts based on Ibn al-Qāsim’s transmissions.83 Ibn Taymiyya, as mentioned, was convinced of Yaḥyā b. Yaḥyā’s decisive role in the prevalence among Mālikīs of the Islamic West of the hermeneutical principle whereby “when multiple views were narrated from Malik by different students of his, Ibn al-Qāsim’s transmission was to reign supreme”.84 The sources at our disposal also tend to suggest that what attracted knowledge-seeking Ifriqiyans and Andalusis in Egypt in the 180s (H) to Ibn al-Qāsim was the fact that he had studied for so long directly under Mālik. All of this was surely part of the picture, but there were others factors that likely played an even more significant role.

    34My proposal is that we have to look for what those travelling Ifriqiyans and Andalusis had in common with Ibn al-Qāsim: the ğund. As I have mentioned, Ibn al-Qāsim’s father was enrolled in the military dīwān. Many of those who travelled from the Islamic West to Egypt in search of knowledge were also connected to the ğund as Arabs or clients of Arabs: Ziyād b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān al-Laḫmī, known as Šabṭūn (d. 204/819);85 Saʿīd b. Muḥammad b. Bašīr al-Maʿāfirī; Yaḥyā b. Yaḥyā al-Layṯī, one of whose Berber ancestors had become a client of Kināna; Asad b. al-Furāt;86 ʿĪsā b. Dīnār al-Ġāfiqī87 – and the list goes on. The Arab military regiments of Umayyad times had arrived in North Africa and al-Andalus mostly through Egypt,88 where lasting ties of solidarity were likely forged between those who left and those who stayed on. This is clearly illustrated by the case of Ibn al-Qāsim’s nisba, al-ʿUtaqī. It is shows up twenty-five times in the database of Andalusi scholars Prosopografía de los Ulemas Andalusíes (PUA), which contains information on some 11,831 figures.89 Most of these ʿUtaqī-s were descendants of a member of the Egyptian ğund who had settled in the area of Tudmīr (present-day Murcia). As the importance of the conquering army slowly waned, this first ʿUtaqī’s descendants turned to scholarship, specializing in the transmission of Saḥnūn’s Mudawwana.90 The ʿUtaqī-s attached themselves, among others, to the tribe of Kināna, the same tribal patrons as the Berber Yaḥyā b. Yaḥyā, while the judge Saʿīd b. Muḥammad b. Bašīr belonged to the Egyptian ğund that had settled in Beja.91 This could be another factor behind the attraction towards Ibn al-Qāsim, who in turn also embodies the movement of descendants of ğundī-s towards scholarship as the conquest-based society gave way to a new era.92

    35If military camaraderie and connections played a role, the same must have been true of trade. Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ’s biography of Ibn al-Qāsim indicates that he was active in Alexandria, an important commercial city,93 and that he was involved in commercial transactions, which explains his specialization in sales, as underscored in the sources. Many of those travelling from the Islamic West in search of knowledge were involved in some kind of trading activity,94 and for them Ibn al-Qāsim’s teachings on sales must have constituted an added value. Scholarship and trade were enhanced by piety and, again, thanks to Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ’s biography of Ibn al-Qāsim, we learn that the Andalusi scholar ʿĪsā b. Dīnār joined him in ribāṭ activity.95 Thus, it is by situating the networks of teachers and students within a wider social context, whether it be military or commercial, that they acquire a more complete significance.96

    Notes de bas de page

    1This paper was written during my stay at the Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies (University of Exeter) as Visiting Al-Qasimi Professor of Islamic Studies (October 2019-March 2020). It was read at the workshop Narratives on the Maliki Legal School: Inside and outside views (from the early period to the present), 28–29 February 2020, which I organized within the project AMOI (Contextos locales y dinámicas globales: al-Andalus y el Magreb en el Oriente islámico) FFI2016–78878-R AEI/FEDER, UE. It was hosted by the Centre for the Study of Islam, as part of the on-going work of the Centre in Islamic Legal Studies, including the ERC-funded project LAWALISI (Law, Authority and Learning in Imami Shiite Islam), directed by Prof. Robert Gleave.
    For the first, see M. Muranyi, Die Rechtsbücher des Qairawāners Saḥnūn b. Saʽīd: Entstehungsgeschichte und Werküberlieferung, Stuttgart, Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft, Kommissionsverlag F. Steiner, 1999; N. Hentati, “Min al-Asadiyya ilā l-Muḫtaliṭa wa-l-Mudawwana”, in N. Hentati (ed.), Dirāsāt ḥaḍāriyya ḥawla l-Qayrawān, Tunis, Imprimerie officielle de la République Tunisienne, 2015, p. 39–52. For the second, see A. Fernández Félix, Cuestiones legales del Islam temprano: la “ʿUtbiyya” y el proceso de formación de la sociedad islámica andalusí, Madrid, CSIC, 2003.

    2This in spite of having transmitted Mālik’s Muwaṭṭaʾ, which contains some Prophetic ḥadīṯ-s. On this subject, see the introduction to Mālik b. Anas, al-Muwaṭṭaʾ by Mālik b. Anas (d. 179/795) [The recension of Yaḥyā b. Yaḥyā al-Laythī (d. 234/848)], English translation by M. Fadel and C. Monette, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press (Harvard Series in Islamic Law, 8). In the entry devoted to Ibn al-Qāsim in his Siyar (to be dealt with below), al-Ḏahabī quotes some ḥadīṯ-s transmitted by him. However, the bulk of Ibn al-Qāsim’s transmissions from Mālik do not contain ḥadīṯ, and to my knowledge there was no attempt to gather together his transmissions in this field, obviously because the result would have been too meagre. N. Calder, in his Studies in Early Muslim Jurisprudence (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1993), deals with the case of the Mudawwana in his effort to make sense of the different trends that can be detected in early legal works regarding the presence or absence of ḥadīṯ.

    3R. Brunschvig, “Polémiques médiévales autour du rite de Malik”, Al-Andalus, 15, 1950, p. 377–435, p. 401, quoting Ibn Ḥazm’s al-Iḥkām fī uṣūl al-aḥkām, ed. by A. Muḥammad Shākir, 8 vols., Cairo, 1345–48/1927–30, vol. IV, p. 217–218 and vol. VI, p. 172, 182.

    4W. B. Hallaq, The Origins and Evolution of Islamic Law, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004.

    5The more recent bibliographical references are (apart from the studies mentioned in n. 1) J. Schacht’s entry in Encyclopaedia of Islam², and F. Sezgin, Geschichte des Arabischen Schrifttums. Band I, Qurʼānwissenschaften. Ḥadīṯ. Geschichte. Fiqh. Dogmatik. Mystik, Leiden, Brill, 1967, p. 465–466. I wish to thank Jonathan Brockopp for allowing me to consult his forthcoming entry in Encyclopaedia of Islam3. At my suggestion, Amina Naciri, during her brief stay at the CSIC as “Becaria de introducción a la investigación” in 2010, began to study Ibn al-Qāsim’s biographical materials, but eventually left the work unfinished. In 2011 Emre Celebi started working under my supervision on Ibn al-Qāsim’s life and thought as part of his PhD thesis, but unfortunately was forced to abandon the project for personal reasons. I have not been able to locate any monographic study on Ibn al-Qāsim written in the Islamic world either.

    6As J. Brockopp explains, “Juristic dicta represent an alternative form of legal authority, one dependent on the experience and knowledge of the jurist as opposed to his recollection of the Prophet’s words and deeds. Unlike hadith, however, which must be interpreted to yield their legally relevant points, dicta speak directly to the legal problem at hand”: J. Brockopp, “The formation of Islamic law. The Egyptian school (750–900)”, Annales Islamologiques, 45, 2011, p. 123–140, p. 134.

    7One such example can be found in M. Fierro, “Conversion, confession, prayer and apostasy”, in N. Hurvitz et al. (eds.), Conversion to Islam in the Premodern Age: A sourcebook, Oakland, California University Press, 2020, p. 186–192.

    8See above n. 1 and J. Brockopp, Muhammad’s Heirs: The rise of Muslim scholarly communities, 622–950, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2017.

    9The reason for this choice is the research I have been carrying out recently on the presence of Mālikī scholars from the Islamic West (North Africa and al-Andalus) in Mamluk territories (see M. Fierro, “Mālikī jurists from the Maghrib and al-Andalus in post-Fatimid Egypt”, in M. Fierro and M. Penelas [eds.], The Maghrib in the Mashriq: Travel, knowledge and identity, Berlin/Boston, de Gruyter [Studies in the History and Culture of the Middle East, 40], 2021, p. 411–434), which has included looking at the role of Ibn al-Qāsim in Mālikī legal thinking under the Mamluks.

    10Ibn Farḥūn, al-Dībāğ al-muḏhab fī maʿrifat aʿyān ʿulamāʾ al-maḏhab, 2 vols., Cairo, s. n., 1972, vol. I, p. 465–468. The main source is Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ (d. 544/1149), Tartīb al-madārik li-maʿrifat aʿlām maḏhab Mālik, ed. by M. b. Tāwīt al-Ṭanğī, 8 vols., Rabat, Wizārat al-Awqāf wa-l-šuʼūn al-islāmiyya, 1983, vol. III, p. 244–261. There is an online English translation of Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ’s biography by A. A. Bewley https://bewley.virtualave.net/madarikcont.html consulted on 7 March 2020. I intend to devote another study to this important text.

    11Ibn Farḥūn refers to Ibn Ḥāriṯ al-Ḫušanī (d. 361/971), who explained that the nisba al-ʿUtaqī is related to the slaves (ʿabīd) that came down from al-Ṭāʾif to the Prophet and were eventually freed by him. Other sources give more information and specify that these men were referred to as al-ʿutaqāʾ after this manumission (the semantic domain of the Arabic root ʿ.t.q). These ʿutaqāʾ, as explained by Ibn Ḫallikān in his biography on Ibn al-Qāsim, participated in the conquest of Egypt with ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ and were part of the ahl al-rāya with whom they were registered in the dīwān; they were settled in the periphery (al-ẓāhir) of Fusṭāṭ as they were in Alexandria when the distribution of land (al-ḫiṭaṭ) was made.

    12Mālik, al-Layṯ, Ibn al-Māğišūn, Muslim b. Ḫālid al-Zanğī and others.

    13Aṣbaġ, Saḥnūn, ʿĪsā b. Dīnār, al-Ḥāriṯ b. Miskīn, Yaḥyā b. Yaḥyā, Abū Zayd b. Abī l-Ġamr, Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Ḥakam and others.

    14I have not been able to identify the al-Nasāʾī work quoted here. Al-Nasāʾī mentions the name of Ibn al-Qāsim in his Tasmiyat fuqahāʾ al-amṣār: al-Nasāʾī, Ṯalāṯ rasāʼil ḥadīṯiyya li l-Imām al-Nasāʼī, ed. by ʻA. al-K. A. al-Warīkāt and M. Ḥ. M. Salmān, Zarka, Maktabat al-Manār, 1987, p. 111 and 150, but these instances make no mention of the information given by Ibn Farḥūn.

    15As shown by the many quotations from Ibn al-Qāsim in his al-Išrāf ʿalā masāʾil al-ḫilāf, [Morocco], Maṭbaʿat al-Irādah, [1950] and ed. by al-Ḥ. ibn Ṭāhir, 2 vols., Beirut, Dār Ibn Ḥazm, 1999. See also his Kitāb al-talqīn fī l-fiqh al-mālikī, Rabat, al-Mamlaka al-maġribiyya, Wizārat al-awqāf wa-l-šuʾūn al-islāmiyya, 1993 and al-Maʾūna ʿalā maḏhab ʿālim al-Madīna, ed. by Ḥ. M. Ḥasan Ismāʿīl al-Šāfiʿī, 2 vols., Beirut, Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 1998.

    16Of the three most important Egyptian students of Mālik, Ašhab was versed in compensations for injury (ğirāḥ), Ibn al-Qāsim in sales, and Ibn Wahb in the rites of pilgrimage.

    17Ibn Ḫaldūn, Muqaddima, transl. by F. Rosenthal, 3 vols., Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1967, vol. III, p. 10–11, 14 and 286.

    18Contrary to what Ibn Ḫaldūn reports, ʿAbd al-Malik b. Ḥabīb had no direct contact with Ibn al-Qāsim, although one of his teachers was Ibn al-Qāsim’s student Aṣbaġ b. al-Farağ al-Umawī (d. 225/840).

    19W. Thiessen, The formation of the Mudawwana, PhD dissertation, University of Victoria, 2014, p. 175. Thiessen points out that Mālik’s name occurs a total of 18,731 times in the text of the first six volumes of the Mudawwana and Ibn al-Qāsim’s name 1,989 times. These occurrences, however, are not evenly distributed across the volumes, but are much more frequent in those that deal with the ʿibādāt. He therefore asks, “Could the need for authoritative names, more so than in other parts of the text, be greater here in order to establish these fundamentals with the mark of authority?”

    20Edited by M. Abū l-Ağfān, Beirut, Dār al-Ġarb al-Islāmī, 1981. Ibn al-Qāsim is quoted on p. 149, 156, 171, 195, 201 (arguing ʽamal was stronger than ḥadīṯ), 212, 325 and 331. The Intiṣār al-faqīr has been translated into English by Y. Dutton, Original Islam. Malik and the madhhab of Madina, London/New York, Routledge, 2007.

    21Ibn Farḥūn quotes Saḥnūn as declaring, “I heard Ibn al-Qāsim say, ‘I have gladly and contentedly accepted Mālik b. Anas for the good of my soul, and I have placed him between me and Hell.’… [As for me, i.e. Saḥnūn] I have gladly and contentedly accepted Ibn al-Qāsim for the good of my soul, and I have placed him between me and Hell”: Ibn Farḥūn, Tabṣirat al-ḥukkām fī uṣūl al-aqḍiya wa-minhāğ al-aḥkām, 2 vols., Cairo, Maktabat al-Kulliyyāt al-Azhariyya, 1986, vol. I, p. 70 (quoted by M. Fadel in his introduction to Mālik b. Anas, al-Muwaṭṭaʾ by Mālik b. Anas…, op. cit., n. 64).

    22Al-Rāʿī al-Ġarnāṭī, Intiṣār al-faqīr al-sālik…, op. cit., p. 212. See L. Kinberg, “The legitimization of the madhāhib through dreams”, Arabica, 32, 1985, p. 47–79.

    23Al-Rāʿī al-Ġarnāṭī, Intiṣār al-faqīr al-sālik…, op. cit., p. 156, 210–211 (where the story of the Asadiyya – see below – is reported) and 331.

    24Ibn Farḥūn includes his biography in al-Dībāğ al-muḏhab…, op. cit., vol. I, p. 290–291; see also ʿU. R. Kaḥḥāla, Muʽğam al-muʼallifīn. Tarāğim muṣannifī l-kutub al-ʽarabiyya, 15 vols., Beirut, Maktabat al-Muṯannā, 1957–1961, vol. VI, p. 158; C. Brockelmann, Geschichte der Arabischen Litteratur, 2nd ed., Leiden, Brill, 1943–49, Supplementenbänden I, p. 538. His work ʿIqd al-ğawāhir al-ṯamīna fī maḏhab ʿālim al-Madīna has been edited by M. Abū l-Ağfān and ʿA. al-Ḥ. Manṣūr, revised by M. al-Ḥ. b. al-Khūğah and B. b. ʿAbd Allāh Abū Zayd, Beirut, Dār al-Ġarb al-Islāmī, 1995 [repr. 2003], 3 vols. There is another edition by S. al-Mursī, Madīnat Naṣr (Cairo), Dār al-Āfāq al-ʿArabiyya, 2011, 2 vols.

    25On him see the entry by S. A. Jackson in Encyclopaedia of Islam². His work al-Ḏaḫīra has been edited by M. al-Ḥağğī, Beirut, Dār al-Ġarb al-islāmī, 1994. See also his Kitāb al-Furūq: anwār al-burūq fī anwāʼ al-furūq, Cairo, Dār al-Salām, 2001 (another edition in Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʽIlmiyya, 1998).

    26In al-Qarāfī’s more theoretical work al-Iḥkām fī tamyīz al-fatāwā ʽan al-aḥkām wa-taṣarrufāt al-qāḍī wa-l-imām (ed. by ʿAbd al-Fattāḥ Abū Gudda, 2nd edition, Beirut, 1416/1995), Ibn al-Qāsim is less prominent than ʿAbd al-Malik b. Ḥabīb.

    27According to Thiessen, the Mudawwana records only about 860 ḥadīṯ-s.

    28J. H. Escovitz, “The Establishment of Four Chief Judgeships in the Mamluk Empire”, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 102, 1982, p. 529–531; S. Jackson, “The Primacy of Domestic Politics: Ibn Bint Al-Aʽazz and the Establishment of the Four Chief Judgeships in Mamluk Egypt”, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 115/1, 1995, p. 52–65; Y. Rapoport, “Legal Diversity in the Age of Taqlīd: The Four Chief Qāḍīs under the Mamluks”, Islamic Law and Society, 10/2, 2003, p. 210–228.

    29M. Fadel, “The Social Logic of Taqlīd and the Rise of the Mukhtaṣar”, Islamic Law and Society, 3/2, 1996, p. 193–233.

    30Rapoport, “Legal Diversity in the Age of Taqlīd…”, art. cit., p. 215.

    31This topic requires further research. In any case, as we shall see, before Mamluk times there had already been challenges to Ibn al-Qāsim’s doctrines.

    32See for example al-Rāʿī al-Ġarnāṭī, Intiṣār al-faqīr al-sālik…, op. cit., p. 325.

    33See his article quoted in n. 3.

    34Ibn Taymiyya, Tafḍīl maḏhab al-imām Mālik wa-ahl al-Madīna wa-ṣiḥḥat uṣūlihi, ed. by A. Muḥammad Qāsim al-Ṭahṭāwī, Cairo, Dār al-Faḍīla, 2006. See also https://sites.google.com/site/jhoover363/taymiyyan-studies/arabic-texts. The treatise is found in Ibn Taymiyya, Mağmūʽ al-fatāwā, 37 vols. https://sites.google.com/site/jhoover363/taymiyyan-studies/arabic-texts at vol. 20, 294–396, where it is called Ṣiḥḥat maḏhab ahl al-Madīna. There is an English translation by A. Bewley and A. A. Bewley, The Madinan Way: The Soundness of the Basic Premises of the School of the People of Madina, Norwich, Bookwork, 2000. Ibn Taymiyya interacted with Mālikī views in many of his works and had problems with the Mālikī chief judges of Cairo, writing a refutation of the Mālikī chief judge al-Iknāʾī on grave visitation: Ibn Taymiyya, Al-Iḫnāʾiyya aw al-Radd ʿalā al-Iḫnāʾī, ed. by A. ibn Mūnis al-ʿAnzī, Jedda, Dār al-Ḫarrāz, 1420/2000. I owe these references to Jon Hoover.

    35Ibn Taymiyya, The Madinan Way…, English transl., op. cit., p. 19.

    36Ibid., p. 25–26.

    37Ibid., p. 29.

    38Ibid., p. 7.

    39See on this issue M. I. Fierro, “La polémique à propos de rafʽ al-yadayn fī l-ṣalāt dans al-Andalus”, Studia Islamica, 65, 1987, p. 69–90.

    40Ibn Taymiyya, The Madinan Way…, English transl., op. cit., p. 30 (Arabic text, p. 70).

    41C. Gilliot, s. v. “Abū Zurʿa al-Rāzī”, in Encyclopaedia of Islam3. He had stayed in Egypt for a number of months studying al-Šāfiʿī’s books and probably learned about the Asadiyya there. See below n. 58.

    42Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ, Tartīb al-madārik…, op. cit., vol. III, p. 296–301; al-Šīrāzī, Ṭabaqāt al-fuqahāʼ, ed. by I. ʿAbbās, Beirut, 1981, p. 155–156.

    43Ibn Taymiyya describes him as an ʿāmil, a term that in al-Andalus was used to refer to the delegate of the ruler in charge of collecting taxes. The extant biographical information on Yaḥyā b. Yaḥyā does not, however, mention that he held such position: M. Fierro, “El alfaquí beréber Yaḥyà b. Yaḥyà, ʽel inteligente de al-Andalus’”, in M. L. Ávila, M. Marín (eds.), Estudios Onomástico-Biográficos de al-Andalus. VIII, Granada/Madrid, CSIC, 1997, p. 269–344.

    44We shall see below that this is corroborated by a story told about one of the earliest Cordoban judges, Ibn Bašīr. Ibn Taymiyya’s view is close that of Ibn Ḥazm, who had said that both Ḥanafism and Mālikism spread thanks to riyāsa and sulṭa: M. Fierro, “El alfaquí beréber Yaḥyà b. Yaḥyà…”, art. cit., p. 315.

    45Ibn Taymiyya, The Madinan Way…, Arabic text, op. cit., p. 70–71; English transl., op. cit., p. 30.

    46On him see n. 69 below.

    47Ibn Taymiyya, The Madinan Way…, Arabic text, op. cit., p. 76–77; English transl. p. 34- the first part of the story, I follow the translation by A. El Shamsy, The Canonization of Early Islamic Law: A social and intellectual history, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2013, p. 112–113, and in the second part I have adapted Bewley’s translation. The source is Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ, Tartīb al-madārik…, op. cit., vol. IV, p. 161. Ibn Ḫallikān (d. 681/1282), Wafayāt al-aʽyān wa-anbāʼ abnāʼ al-zamān, ed. by I. ʿAbbās, 8 vols., Beirut, 1971–72, vol. IV, p. 194, quotes it as a transmission from Ašhab.

    48Bewley translates as “His father was in the Diwan (chancellory [sic]) and Ibn al-Qasim inherited from him the money which he spent for his journey to Malik”. However, taking into account what has been explained in note 11, the meaning is clear: his father was included in the Egyptian army’s register. On this see H. Kennedy in the entry on Miṣr in Encyclopaedia of Islam² and S. Bouderbala, Ǧund Miṣr : étude de la administration militaire dans l’Égypte des débuts de l’Islam. 21/642–218/833, PhD. Thesis, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, 2008, especially p. 128 and 188–189 (on al-ʿutaqāʾ). I wish to thank P. Sijpesteijn for this last reference.

    49Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ mentions a story in which Ibn al-Qāsim’s brother is imprisoned, an experience that sets off his interest in religious knowledge. The reason for the imprisonment is not given. It may have been this experience that moved Ibn al-Qāsim to forsake closeness to those in power or inqibāḍ ʿan al-sulṭān, a decision highlighted by his biographers.

    50Ibn Ḫallikān, Wafayāt al-aʽyān…, op. cit., vol. III, p. 129, no. 362. He however includes extensive information about the origins of Ibn al-Qāsim’s ancestors: see above n. 11.

    51See above n. 42.

    52See above n. 14.

    53I will present these materials in a forthcoming study.

    54The list that follows is based on the literary sources, and I will only briefly refer to certain manuscript materials. In order to draw up this list I have used the database Historia de los Autores y Transmisores de al-Andalus (HATA), online at http://kohepocu.cchs.csic.es/. The Andalusi scholar Ḥusayn b. ʿĀṣim b. Muslim b. Kaʿb b. Muḥammad b. ʿAlqama b. Ğannāb b. Muslim al-Ṯaqafī (d. 180/796 or 208/823) transmitted Ibn al-Qāsim’s Kutub: Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ, Tartīb al-madārik…, op. cit., vol. IV, p. 121; M. Fierro, “Los Banū ʿĀṣim al-Ṯaqafī, antepasados de Ibn al-Zubayr”, Al-Qanṭara, 7, 1986, p. 53–84, see especially p. 61, n. 41.

    55M. Muranyi, “A Unique Manuscript from Kairouan in the British Library: the Samāʿ-work of Ibn al-Qāsim al-ʿUtaqī and Issues of Methodology”, in H. Berg (ed.), Method and Theory in the Study of Islamic Origins, Leiden, Brill, 2003, p. 325–368. For the latter see above n. 1.

    56Mağālis Ibn al-Qāsim allatī saʾala ʿanhā Mālik, ed. by M. Bāḥū, Ribat, Ṭūb Brīs, [2010].

    57Ibn Ḫayr, Fahrasa, ed. by F. Codera and J. Ribera, 2 vols., Zaragoza, 1893, vol. I, p. 254.

    58Al-Ġamrī, Al-Tasmiya wa-l-ḥikāyāt ʿan nuẓarāʾ Mālik wa-aṣḥabihi wa-aṣḥāb aṣḥābihi wa-yalīhi Ḏikr fahrasat al-kutub al-muṣannafa ʿalā maḏhab ahl al-Madīna, ed. by R. b. Ṣāliḥ al-Ḥasrī, Rabat, al-Rābiṭa al-muḥammadiyya li-l-ʿulamāʾ Markaz al-dirāsāt wa-l-abḥāṯ wa-iḥyāʾ al-turāṯ, 1436/2015, p. 106 and 161.

    59Abū Zurʿa al-Rāzī, Al-Ḍuʿafāʾ/Ağwibatuhu ʿalā asʾilat al-Barḏaʿī, 3 vols., Medina, Maktabat Ibn al-Qayyim, 1989, vol. II, p. 532–533. Abū ʿUṯmān al-Barḏaʿī (d. 292/905) was Abū Zurʿa’s student: Suʾalāt al-Barḏaʿī, 2nd ed., Cairo, Dār al-Wafāʾ, 1988. The circumstances of al-Asadiyya’s composition and its relation to the Mudawwana, are also mentioned in al-Ġamrī, al-Tasmiya wa-l-ḥikāyāt…, op. cit., p. 102–103 (his source is the Iraqi Mālikī al-Abharī), 129–131 and 150. Muranyi has found little material evidence of the existence of the Asadiyya. This together with his mistaken belief that the earliest mention of the work was by al-Šīrāzī has led him to doubt the story of its existence. According to the literary sources, the Asadiyya disappeared from circulation once Saḥnūn corrected its transmissions under the guidance of Ibn al-Qāsim, so that his materials spread while Asad’s were forgotten.

    60Ibn Ḥāriṯ al-Ḫušanī (d. 361/971), Aḫbār al-fuqahāʾ wa-l-muḥaddiṯīn (Historia de los alfaquíes y tradicionistas de al-Andalus), ed. by M. L. Ávila, L. Molina, Madrid, CSIC/ICMA, 1992, p. 359, no. 493.

    61Ibn al-Qāsim, Al-Muwaṭṭaʾ riwāyat Abī ʿAbd Allāh ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Qāsim al-ʿUtaqī: Talḫīṣ Ibn al-Qābisī, ed. by al-S. M. b. ʿAlawī al-Mālikī, 3rd edition, n. p., 1424/2003; Ibn ʿAṭiyya, Fihris, ed. by M. Abū l-Ağfān and M. al-Zāhī, Beirut, Dār al-Ġarb al-islāmī, 1980, p. 103.

    62Al-Ġamrī, al-Tasmiya wa-l-ḥikāyāt…, op. cit., p. 104.

    63M. Muranyi, Beiträge zur Geschichte der ḥadīṯ- und Rechtsgelehrsamkeit der Mālikiyya in Nordafrika bis zum 5.Jh.D.H. Bio-bibliographische Notizen aus der Moscheebibliothek von Qairawān, Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz Verlag, 1997, p. 95; P. Chalmeta, s. v. “Ibn ʽUmar al-Kinānī, Yaḥyà”, in J. Lirola Delgado (ed.), Biblioteca de al-Andalus, vol. 5, De Ibn Saʽāda a Ibn Wuhayb, Almería, Fundación Ibn Tufayl de Estudios Árabes, 2007, p. 525–527, no. 1282.

    64In his time Ibn Zarb was considered to be the jurist with the most knowledge of Mālik’s doctrine. A contemporary jurist and judge of Cordoba, Muḥammad b. Isḥāq b. al-Salīm (d. 367/977), was reported to have told him, “If Ibn al-Qāsim had seen you, he would have been impressed”. On his biography see Documentación, s. v. “Ibn Zarb, Abū Bakr”, in J. Lirola Delgado (ed.), Biblioteca de al-Andalus, vol. 6, De Ibn al-Ŷabbāb a Nubḏat al-ʽaṣr, Almería, Fundación Ibn Tufayl de Estudios Árabes, 2009, p. 256–257, no. 1431.

    65D. Vázquez Paluch, The Establishment of the Maliki School in Muslim Spain, PhD Dissertation, School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London), 2008, p. 236. I wish to thank the author for allowing me to quote his unpublished work.

    66Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ, Tartīb al-madārik…, op. cit., vol. VIII, p. 210.

    67See above n. 39.

    68Muranyi, “A Unique Manuscript from Kairouan”, art. cit., p. 352, 354. See also al-Ġamrī, al-Tasmiya wa-l-ḥikāyāt…, op. cit., p. 153.

    69On the author see B. Villuendas Sabaté, s. v. “al-Ŷubayrī, Abū ʽUbayd”, in Jorge Lirola Delgado (ed.), Biblioteca de al-Andalus, vol. 7, De al-Qabrīrī a Zumurrud, Almería, Fundación Ibn Tufayl de Estudios Árabes, 2012, p. 670–672, no. 1863. On the work see Vázquez Paluch, The Establishment of the Maliki School…, op. cit., p. 197–212. It has been edited by al-Ḥ. Ḥamdūšī, Beirut, Dār Ibn Ḥazm li-l-Ṭibāʿa wa-al-Našr wa-al-Tawzīʿ, 2007.

    70Vázquez Paluch, The Establishment of the Maliki School…, op. cit., p. 201.

    71Ibid., p. 207.

    72J. Brockopp, s. v. “Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam, ʿAbdallāh”, in Encyclopaedia of Islam3; also id., Early Mālikī Law: Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam and his Major Compendium of Jurisprudence, Leiden, Brill, 2000 and “The Minor compendium of Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam (d. 214/829) and its reception in the early Mālikī school”, Islamic Law and Society, 12/2, 2005, p. 149–181.

    73ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbd al-Ḥakam, al-Muḫtaṣar al-kabīr, ed. by A. ibn ʿA. al-K. Nağīb, [Dublin/Cairo], Markaz Nağībawayh li-l-Maḫṭūṭāt wa-Ḫidmat al-Turāṯ/Tawzīʿ al-Maktabat al-Tawfīqīyah, 1432/2011; ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbd al-Ḥakam, al-Muḫtaṣar al-ṣaġīr, riwāyat Abī ʿAbd Allāh al-Barqī, ed. by ʿU. ʿA. Abū Bakr Zāriyā, Riyad/Cairo, Dār Ibn al-Qayyim li-l-Našr wa-l-Tawzīʿ/Dār Ibn ʿAffān li-l-Našr wa-l-Tawzīʿ, 2013. See also ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Muḥammad al-Barqī, Ziyādat iḫtilāf fuqahāʾ al-amṣār fī l-Muḫtaṣar al-ṣaġīr li-ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam, Dubai, Ğamʿiyyat Dār al-Birr, 2012 and al-Abharī, Šarḥ al-Šayḫ Abī Bakr al-Abharī al-Baġdādī al-Mālikī… li-Kitāb al-Ğāmiʿ li-ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbd al-Ḥakam, Beirut, Dār al-Ġarb al-Islāmī, 2004.

    74C. Melchert, The Formation of the Sunni Schools of Law, 9th‑10th Centuries C.E., Leiden, Brill, 1997, p. 122.

    75Ismāʿīl b. Isḥāq al-Qāḍī, Aḥkām al-Qurʾān, ed. by ʿĀ. Ḥ. Ṣabrī, Beirut, Dār Ibn Ḥazm, 2005; Ibn al-Ğallāb al-Baṣrī, al-Tafrīʿ fī fiqh al-Imām Mālik ibn Anas, ed. by S. Khasrawī Ḥasan, 2 vols., Beirut, Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, Manšūrāt Muḥammad ʿAlī al-Bayḍūn, 2007. For al-Abharī see n. 73 above.

    76Vázquez Paluch, The Establishment of the Maliki School…, op. cit., p. 136.

    77Ibid., p. 137.

    78Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ, Tartīb al-madārik…, op. cit., vol. I, p. 260; Vázquez Paluch, The Establishment of the Maliki School…, op. cit., p. 49.

    79Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, al-Intiqāʾ fī faḍāʾil al-aʾimma al-ṯalāṯa al-fuqahāʾ, Beirut, Maktab al-maṭbūʿāt al-islāmiyya, 1997, p. 92–96.

    80This attempt on the part of the Cordoban caliph can be linked to the legal activity of Qāḍī l-Nuʿmān, the chief judge of the Fatimids, who had collected the transmissions of the Shīʿī imams to provide a solid foundation for his composition of what can be considered an Ismāʿīlī legal code under the Fatimid imam-caliph al-Muʿizz (r. 341/953–365/975). See on this process K. Rajani, Making Sense of Ismaili Traditions: The Modes and Meanings of the Transmission of Ḥadīth in the Works of Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān (d. 363/974), PhD thesis, Exeter University, 2019. On the link between the two cases see M. Fierro, “ʿAbd al-Raḥmān III and the Cordoban caliphate”, in M. Gerli (ed.), The Routledge Hispanic Studies Companion to Medieval Iberia: Unity in Diversity, Abingdon, Oxfordshire/New York, Routledge, 2021, p. 152–166.

    81Al-Wanšarīsī (d. 914/1508), al-Miʿyār al-muʿrib wa-l-ğāmiʿ al-muġrib ʿan fatāwī ahl Ifrīqiya wa-l-Andalus wa-l-Maġrib, ed. by M. Ḥağğī, 13 vols., Rabat, Wizārat al-Awqāf wa-al-šuʾūn al-islāmīya li l-Mamlaka al-Maġribīya, 1401/1981, vol. IX, p. 424, 451, 467.

    82J. Brockopp, “Saḥnūn’s Mudawwanah and the Piety of the ‘Sharīʿah-minded’”, in A. K. Reinhart and R. Gleave (eds.), Islamic law in theory: Studies on jurisprudence in honor of Bernard Weiss, Leiden, Brill, 2014, p. 129–142.

    83Al-Šaʿbī, al-Aḥkām, ed. by al-Ṣ. al-Ḥalawī, Beirut, Dār al-Ġarb al-Islāmī, 1992, p. 114–115.

    84Vázquez Paluch, The Establishment of the Maliki School…, op. cit., p. 264.

    85M. Fierro, “Tres familias andalusíes de época omeya apodadas Banū Ziyād”, in M. Marín, J. Zanón (eds.), Estudios Onomástico-Biográficos de al-Andalus. V, Madrid, CSIC, 1992, p. 85–142.

    86M. Ben Cheneb, Classes des savants de l’Ifrīqīya par Abuʼ l-ʽArab Moḥammed ben Aḥmed ben Tamīm et Moḥammed ben al-Ḥāriṯ ben Asad al-Ḫošanī, Paris/Alger, Publications de la Faculté des lettres d’Alger, 1915/1920, p. 51–52 and 81–83 (Arabic text)/p. 153–157 (French translation), where no mention is made of his compilation known as al-Asadiyya; U. Rizzitano, “Asad Ibn al-Furāt. Faqīh e qāḍī d’Ifriqīyah”, Rivista di Studi Orientali, 36, 1961, p. 225–243.

    87P. Cano Ávila, s.v. “Ibn Dīnār, ʽĪsà”, in J. Lirola Delgado and J. M. Puerta Vílchez (eds.), Biblioteca de al-Andalus, vol. 3, De Ibn al-Dabbāg a Ibn Kurz, Almería, Fundación Ibn Tufayl de Estudios Árabes, 2004, p. 69–74, no. 436; D. Vazquez-Paluch, “The Legal Thought of an Early Andalusian Jurist: ʽĪsā b. Dīnār”, International Journal for the Semiotics of Law, 29, 2016, p. 425–453.

    88Ibn al-Qāsim’s family had come to Egypt from Syria, more specifically from Filisṭīn (Ramla), so they belonged to the Syrian ğund: see below n. 91.

    89A database created under the leadership of María Luisa Ávila and Luis Molina, available online at https://www.eea.csic.es/pua/.

    90This can be corroborated in HATA (see above n. 54). The earliest ʿUtaqī scholar who transmitted the Mudawwana in al-Andalus was Abū l-Faḍl ʿAmīra b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān (or Muḥammad) b. Marwān b. Ḫaṭṭāb b. ʿAbd al-Ğabbār b. Ḫaṭṭāb b. Marwān b. Naḏīr al-ʿUtaqī al-Tudmīrī (d. after 238/852).

    91In his case, he was not a descendant of the conquering army but of the ğund-s sent by the Umayyad caliph to fight the Berber rebellion in 123/743, whose suppression led their leader Balğ b. Bišr to seek refuge in al-Andalus: E. Manzano Moreno, “El asentamiento y la organización de los ŷund sirios en al-Andalus”, Al-Qanṭara, 14, 1993, p. 327–359.

    92A process documented by P. Crone, Slaves on Horses: The evolution of the Islamic polity, New York, Cambridge University Press, 1980. The Arab army was dissolved in Egypt in 833 (Brockopp, “The formation of Islamic law…”, art. cit., p. 128), that is, 27 years after Ibn al-Qāsim’s death.

    93Brockopp, “The formation of Islamic law…”, art. cit., p. 131.

    94M. Marín, “Biographical Dictionaries and Social History of al-Andalus: trade and scholarship”, Scripta Mediterranea, 19–20, 1998–1999, p. 239–257. See also Ch. Picard, La mer et les musulmans d’Occident au Moyen Âge : viiie‑xiiie siècle, Paris, Presses universitaires de France, 1997.

    95Ch. Picard, A. Borrut, “Rābata, Ribāt, Rābita : une institution à reconsidérer”, in Ph. Sénac, N. Prouteau (eds.), Chrétiens et musulmans en Méditerranée médiévale (viiie-xiiie siècle). Échanges et contacts, Poitiers, CECSM (Civilisation médiévale), 2003, p. 33–65.

    96I will expand upon this point as regards the Mālikī legal school in future studies.

    Auteur

    • Maribel Fierro

      Instituto de Lenguas y Culturas del Mediterráneo – CSIC (Madrid)

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    1This paper was written during my stay at the Institute of Arabic and Islamic Studies (University of Exeter) as Visiting Al-Qasimi Professor of Islamic Studies (October 2019-March 2020). It was read at the workshop Narratives on the Maliki Legal School: Inside and outside views (from the early period to the present), 28–29 February 2020, which I organized within the project AMOI (Contextos locales y dinámicas globales: al-Andalus y el Magreb en el Oriente islámico) FFI2016–78878-R AEI/FEDER, UE. It was hosted by the Centre for the Study of Islam, as part of the on-going work of the Centre in Islamic Legal Studies, including the ERC-funded project LAWALISI (Law, Authority and Learning in Imami Shiite Islam), directed by Prof. Robert Gleave.
    For the first, see M. Muranyi, Die Rechtsbücher des Qairawāners Saḥnūn b. Saʽīd: Entstehungsgeschichte und Werküberlieferung, Stuttgart, Deutsche Morgenländische Gesellschaft, Kommissionsverlag F. Steiner, 1999; N. Hentati, “Min al-Asadiyya ilā l-Muḫtaliṭa wa-l-Mudawwana”, in N. Hentati (ed.), Dirāsāt ḥaḍāriyya ḥawla l-Qayrawān, Tunis, Imprimerie officielle de la République Tunisienne, 2015, p. 39–52. For the second, see A. Fernández Félix, Cuestiones legales del Islam temprano: la “ʿUtbiyya” y el proceso de formación de la sociedad islámica andalusí, Madrid, CSIC, 2003.

    2This in spite of having transmitted Mālik’s Muwaṭṭaʾ, which contains some Prophetic ḥadīṯ-s. On this subject, see the introduction to Mālik b. Anas, al-Muwaṭṭaʾ by Mālik b. Anas (d. 179/795) [The recension of Yaḥyā b. Yaḥyā al-Laythī (d. 234/848)], English translation by M. Fadel and C. Monette, Cambridge, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press (Harvard Series in Islamic Law, 8). In the entry devoted to Ibn al-Qāsim in his Siyar (to be dealt with below), al-Ḏahabī quotes some ḥadīṯ-s transmitted by him. However, the bulk of Ibn al-Qāsim’s transmissions from Mālik do not contain ḥadīṯ, and to my knowledge there was no attempt to gather together his transmissions in this field, obviously because the result would have been too meagre. N. Calder, in his Studies in Early Muslim Jurisprudence (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1993), deals with the case of the Mudawwana in his effort to make sense of the different trends that can be detected in early legal works regarding the presence or absence of ḥadīṯ.

    3R. Brunschvig, “Polémiques médiévales autour du rite de Malik”, Al-Andalus, 15, 1950, p. 377–435, p. 401, quoting Ibn Ḥazm’s al-Iḥkām fī uṣūl al-aḥkām, ed. by A. Muḥammad Shākir, 8 vols., Cairo, 1345–48/1927–30, vol. IV, p. 217–218 and vol. VI, p. 172, 182.

    4W. B. Hallaq, The Origins and Evolution of Islamic Law, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2004.

    5The more recent bibliographical references are (apart from the studies mentioned in n. 1) J. Schacht’s entry in Encyclopaedia of Islam², and F. Sezgin, Geschichte des Arabischen Schrifttums. Band I, Qurʼānwissenschaften. Ḥadīṯ. Geschichte. Fiqh. Dogmatik. Mystik, Leiden, Brill, 1967, p. 465–466. I wish to thank Jonathan Brockopp for allowing me to consult his forthcoming entry in Encyclopaedia of Islam3. At my suggestion, Amina Naciri, during her brief stay at the CSIC as “Becaria de introducción a la investigación” in 2010, began to study Ibn al-Qāsim’s biographical materials, but eventually left the work unfinished. In 2011 Emre Celebi started working under my supervision on Ibn al-Qāsim’s life and thought as part of his PhD thesis, but unfortunately was forced to abandon the project for personal reasons. I have not been able to locate any monographic study on Ibn al-Qāsim written in the Islamic world either.

    6As J. Brockopp explains, “Juristic dicta represent an alternative form of legal authority, one dependent on the experience and knowledge of the jurist as opposed to his recollection of the Prophet’s words and deeds. Unlike hadith, however, which must be interpreted to yield their legally relevant points, dicta speak directly to the legal problem at hand”: J. Brockopp, “The formation of Islamic law. The Egyptian school (750–900)”, Annales Islamologiques, 45, 2011, p. 123–140, p. 134.

    7One such example can be found in M. Fierro, “Conversion, confession, prayer and apostasy”, in N. Hurvitz et al. (eds.), Conversion to Islam in the Premodern Age: A sourcebook, Oakland, California University Press, 2020, p. 186–192.

    8See above n. 1 and J. Brockopp, Muhammad’s Heirs: The rise of Muslim scholarly communities, 622–950, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2017.

    9The reason for this choice is the research I have been carrying out recently on the presence of Mālikī scholars from the Islamic West (North Africa and al-Andalus) in Mamluk territories (see M. Fierro, “Mālikī jurists from the Maghrib and al-Andalus in post-Fatimid Egypt”, in M. Fierro and M. Penelas [eds.], The Maghrib in the Mashriq: Travel, knowledge and identity, Berlin/Boston, de Gruyter [Studies in the History and Culture of the Middle East, 40], 2021, p. 411–434), which has included looking at the role of Ibn al-Qāsim in Mālikī legal thinking under the Mamluks.

    10Ibn Farḥūn, al-Dībāğ al-muḏhab fī maʿrifat aʿyān ʿulamāʾ al-maḏhab, 2 vols., Cairo, s. n., 1972, vol. I, p. 465–468. The main source is Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ (d. 544/1149), Tartīb al-madārik li-maʿrifat aʿlām maḏhab Mālik, ed. by M. b. Tāwīt al-Ṭanğī, 8 vols., Rabat, Wizārat al-Awqāf wa-l-šuʼūn al-islāmiyya, 1983, vol. III, p. 244–261. There is an online English translation of Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ’s biography by A. A. Bewley https://bewley.virtualave.net/madarikcont.html consulted on 7 March 2020. I intend to devote another study to this important text.

    11Ibn Farḥūn refers to Ibn Ḥāriṯ al-Ḫušanī (d. 361/971), who explained that the nisba al-ʿUtaqī is related to the slaves (ʿabīd) that came down from al-Ṭāʾif to the Prophet and were eventually freed by him. Other sources give more information and specify that these men were referred to as al-ʿutaqāʾ after this manumission (the semantic domain of the Arabic root ʿ.t.q). These ʿutaqāʾ, as explained by Ibn Ḫallikān in his biography on Ibn al-Qāsim, participated in the conquest of Egypt with ʿAmr b. al-ʿĀṣ and were part of the ahl al-rāya with whom they were registered in the dīwān; they were settled in the periphery (al-ẓāhir) of Fusṭāṭ as they were in Alexandria when the distribution of land (al-ḫiṭaṭ) was made.

    12Mālik, al-Layṯ, Ibn al-Māğišūn, Muslim b. Ḫālid al-Zanğī and others.

    13Aṣbaġ, Saḥnūn, ʿĪsā b. Dīnār, al-Ḥāriṯ b. Miskīn, Yaḥyā b. Yaḥyā, Abū Zayd b. Abī l-Ġamr, Muḥammad b. ʿAbd al-Ḥakam and others.

    14I have not been able to identify the al-Nasāʾī work quoted here. Al-Nasāʾī mentions the name of Ibn al-Qāsim in his Tasmiyat fuqahāʾ al-amṣār: al-Nasāʾī, Ṯalāṯ rasāʼil ḥadīṯiyya li l-Imām al-Nasāʼī, ed. by ʻA. al-K. A. al-Warīkāt and M. Ḥ. M. Salmān, Zarka, Maktabat al-Manār, 1987, p. 111 and 150, but these instances make no mention of the information given by Ibn Farḥūn.

    15As shown by the many quotations from Ibn al-Qāsim in his al-Išrāf ʿalā masāʾil al-ḫilāf, [Morocco], Maṭbaʿat al-Irādah, [1950] and ed. by al-Ḥ. ibn Ṭāhir, 2 vols., Beirut, Dār Ibn Ḥazm, 1999. See also his Kitāb al-talqīn fī l-fiqh al-mālikī, Rabat, al-Mamlaka al-maġribiyya, Wizārat al-awqāf wa-l-šuʾūn al-islāmiyya, 1993 and al-Maʾūna ʿalā maḏhab ʿālim al-Madīna, ed. by Ḥ. M. Ḥasan Ismāʿīl al-Šāfiʿī, 2 vols., Beirut, Dār al-kutub al-ʿilmiyya, 1998.

    16Of the three most important Egyptian students of Mālik, Ašhab was versed in compensations for injury (ğirāḥ), Ibn al-Qāsim in sales, and Ibn Wahb in the rites of pilgrimage.

    17Ibn Ḫaldūn, Muqaddima, transl. by F. Rosenthal, 3 vols., Princeton, New Jersey, Princeton University Press, 1967, vol. III, p. 10–11, 14 and 286.

    18Contrary to what Ibn Ḫaldūn reports, ʿAbd al-Malik b. Ḥabīb had no direct contact with Ibn al-Qāsim, although one of his teachers was Ibn al-Qāsim’s student Aṣbaġ b. al-Farağ al-Umawī (d. 225/840).

    19W. Thiessen, The formation of the Mudawwana, PhD dissertation, University of Victoria, 2014, p. 175. Thiessen points out that Mālik’s name occurs a total of 18,731 times in the text of the first six volumes of the Mudawwana and Ibn al-Qāsim’s name 1,989 times. These occurrences, however, are not evenly distributed across the volumes, but are much more frequent in those that deal with the ʿibādāt. He therefore asks, “Could the need for authoritative names, more so than in other parts of the text, be greater here in order to establish these fundamentals with the mark of authority?”

    20Edited by M. Abū l-Ağfān, Beirut, Dār al-Ġarb al-Islāmī, 1981. Ibn al-Qāsim is quoted on p. 149, 156, 171, 195, 201 (arguing ʽamal was stronger than ḥadīṯ), 212, 325 and 331. The Intiṣār al-faqīr has been translated into English by Y. Dutton, Original Islam. Malik and the madhhab of Madina, London/New York, Routledge, 2007.

    21Ibn Farḥūn quotes Saḥnūn as declaring, “I heard Ibn al-Qāsim say, ‘I have gladly and contentedly accepted Mālik b. Anas for the good of my soul, and I have placed him between me and Hell.’… [As for me, i.e. Saḥnūn] I have gladly and contentedly accepted Ibn al-Qāsim for the good of my soul, and I have placed him between me and Hell”: Ibn Farḥūn, Tabṣirat al-ḥukkām fī uṣūl al-aqḍiya wa-minhāğ al-aḥkām, 2 vols., Cairo, Maktabat al-Kulliyyāt al-Azhariyya, 1986, vol. I, p. 70 (quoted by M. Fadel in his introduction to Mālik b. Anas, al-Muwaṭṭaʾ by Mālik b. Anas…, op. cit., n. 64).

    22Al-Rāʿī al-Ġarnāṭī, Intiṣār al-faqīr al-sālik…, op. cit., p. 212. See L. Kinberg, “The legitimization of the madhāhib through dreams”, Arabica, 32, 1985, p. 47–79.

    23Al-Rāʿī al-Ġarnāṭī, Intiṣār al-faqīr al-sālik…, op. cit., p. 156, 210–211 (where the story of the Asadiyya – see below – is reported) and 331.

    24Ibn Farḥūn includes his biography in al-Dībāğ al-muḏhab…, op. cit., vol. I, p. 290–291; see also ʿU. R. Kaḥḥāla, Muʽğam al-muʼallifīn. Tarāğim muṣannifī l-kutub al-ʽarabiyya, 15 vols., Beirut, Maktabat al-Muṯannā, 1957–1961, vol. VI, p. 158; C. Brockelmann, Geschichte der Arabischen Litteratur, 2nd ed., Leiden, Brill, 1943–49, Supplementenbänden I, p. 538. His work ʿIqd al-ğawāhir al-ṯamīna fī maḏhab ʿālim al-Madīna has been edited by M. Abū l-Ağfān and ʿA. al-Ḥ. Manṣūr, revised by M. al-Ḥ. b. al-Khūğah and B. b. ʿAbd Allāh Abū Zayd, Beirut, Dār al-Ġarb al-Islāmī, 1995 [repr. 2003], 3 vols. There is another edition by S. al-Mursī, Madīnat Naṣr (Cairo), Dār al-Āfāq al-ʿArabiyya, 2011, 2 vols.

    25On him see the entry by S. A. Jackson in Encyclopaedia of Islam². His work al-Ḏaḫīra has been edited by M. al-Ḥağğī, Beirut, Dār al-Ġarb al-islāmī, 1994. See also his Kitāb al-Furūq: anwār al-burūq fī anwāʼ al-furūq, Cairo, Dār al-Salām, 2001 (another edition in Beirut: Dār al-Kutub al-ʽIlmiyya, 1998).

    26In al-Qarāfī’s more theoretical work al-Iḥkām fī tamyīz al-fatāwā ʽan al-aḥkām wa-taṣarrufāt al-qāḍī wa-l-imām (ed. by ʿAbd al-Fattāḥ Abū Gudda, 2nd edition, Beirut, 1416/1995), Ibn al-Qāsim is less prominent than ʿAbd al-Malik b. Ḥabīb.

    27According to Thiessen, the Mudawwana records only about 860 ḥadīṯ-s.

    28J. H. Escovitz, “The Establishment of Four Chief Judgeships in the Mamluk Empire”, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 102, 1982, p. 529–531; S. Jackson, “The Primacy of Domestic Politics: Ibn Bint Al-Aʽazz and the Establishment of the Four Chief Judgeships in Mamluk Egypt”, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 115/1, 1995, p. 52–65; Y. Rapoport, “Legal Diversity in the Age of Taqlīd: The Four Chief Qāḍīs under the Mamluks”, Islamic Law and Society, 10/2, 2003, p. 210–228.

    29M. Fadel, “The Social Logic of Taqlīd and the Rise of the Mukhtaṣar”, Islamic Law and Society, 3/2, 1996, p. 193–233.

    30Rapoport, “Legal Diversity in the Age of Taqlīd…”, art. cit., p. 215.

    31This topic requires further research. In any case, as we shall see, before Mamluk times there had already been challenges to Ibn al-Qāsim’s doctrines.

    32See for example al-Rāʿī al-Ġarnāṭī, Intiṣār al-faqīr al-sālik…, op. cit., p. 325.

    33See his article quoted in n. 3.

    34Ibn Taymiyya, Tafḍīl maḏhab al-imām Mālik wa-ahl al-Madīna wa-ṣiḥḥat uṣūlihi, ed. by A. Muḥammad Qāsim al-Ṭahṭāwī, Cairo, Dār al-Faḍīla, 2006. See also https://sites.google.com/site/jhoover363/taymiyyan-studies/arabic-texts. The treatise is found in Ibn Taymiyya, Mağmūʽ al-fatāwā, 37 vols. https://sites.google.com/site/jhoover363/taymiyyan-studies/arabic-texts at vol. 20, 294–396, where it is called Ṣiḥḥat maḏhab ahl al-Madīna. There is an English translation by A. Bewley and A. A. Bewley, The Madinan Way: The Soundness of the Basic Premises of the School of the People of Madina, Norwich, Bookwork, 2000. Ibn Taymiyya interacted with Mālikī views in many of his works and had problems with the Mālikī chief judges of Cairo, writing a refutation of the Mālikī chief judge al-Iknāʾī on grave visitation: Ibn Taymiyya, Al-Iḫnāʾiyya aw al-Radd ʿalā al-Iḫnāʾī, ed. by A. ibn Mūnis al-ʿAnzī, Jedda, Dār al-Ḫarrāz, 1420/2000. I owe these references to Jon Hoover.

    35Ibn Taymiyya, The Madinan Way…, English transl., op. cit., p. 19.

    36Ibid., p. 25–26.

    37Ibid., p. 29.

    38Ibid., p. 7.

    39See on this issue M. I. Fierro, “La polémique à propos de rafʽ al-yadayn fī l-ṣalāt dans al-Andalus”, Studia Islamica, 65, 1987, p. 69–90.

    40Ibn Taymiyya, The Madinan Way…, English transl., op. cit., p. 30 (Arabic text, p. 70).

    41C. Gilliot, s. v. “Abū Zurʿa al-Rāzī”, in Encyclopaedia of Islam3. He had stayed in Egypt for a number of months studying al-Šāfiʿī’s books and probably learned about the Asadiyya there. See below n. 58.

    42Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ, Tartīb al-madārik…, op. cit., vol. III, p. 296–301; al-Šīrāzī, Ṭabaqāt al-fuqahāʼ, ed. by I. ʿAbbās, Beirut, 1981, p. 155–156.

    43Ibn Taymiyya describes him as an ʿāmil, a term that in al-Andalus was used to refer to the delegate of the ruler in charge of collecting taxes. The extant biographical information on Yaḥyā b. Yaḥyā does not, however, mention that he held such position: M. Fierro, “El alfaquí beréber Yaḥyà b. Yaḥyà, ʽel inteligente de al-Andalus’”, in M. L. Ávila, M. Marín (eds.), Estudios Onomástico-Biográficos de al-Andalus. VIII, Granada/Madrid, CSIC, 1997, p. 269–344.

    44We shall see below that this is corroborated by a story told about one of the earliest Cordoban judges, Ibn Bašīr. Ibn Taymiyya’s view is close that of Ibn Ḥazm, who had said that both Ḥanafism and Mālikism spread thanks to riyāsa and sulṭa: M. Fierro, “El alfaquí beréber Yaḥyà b. Yaḥyà…”, art. cit., p. 315.

    45Ibn Taymiyya, The Madinan Way…, Arabic text, op. cit., p. 70–71; English transl., op. cit., p. 30.

    46On him see n. 69 below.

    47Ibn Taymiyya, The Madinan Way…, Arabic text, op. cit., p. 76–77; English transl. p. 34- the first part of the story, I follow the translation by A. El Shamsy, The Canonization of Early Islamic Law: A social and intellectual history, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2013, p. 112–113, and in the second part I have adapted Bewley’s translation. The source is Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ, Tartīb al-madārik…, op. cit., vol. IV, p. 161. Ibn Ḫallikān (d. 681/1282), Wafayāt al-aʽyān wa-anbāʼ abnāʼ al-zamān, ed. by I. ʿAbbās, 8 vols., Beirut, 1971–72, vol. IV, p. 194, quotes it as a transmission from Ašhab.

    48Bewley translates as “His father was in the Diwan (chancellory [sic]) and Ibn al-Qasim inherited from him the money which he spent for his journey to Malik”. However, taking into account what has been explained in note 11, the meaning is clear: his father was included in the Egyptian army’s register. On this see H. Kennedy in the entry on Miṣr in Encyclopaedia of Islam² and S. Bouderbala, Ǧund Miṣr : étude de la administration militaire dans l’Égypte des débuts de l’Islam. 21/642–218/833, PhD. Thesis, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, 2008, especially p. 128 and 188–189 (on al-ʿutaqāʾ). I wish to thank P. Sijpesteijn for this last reference.

    49Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ mentions a story in which Ibn al-Qāsim’s brother is imprisoned, an experience that sets off his interest in religious knowledge. The reason for the imprisonment is not given. It may have been this experience that moved Ibn al-Qāsim to forsake closeness to those in power or inqibāḍ ʿan al-sulṭān, a decision highlighted by his biographers.

    50Ibn Ḫallikān, Wafayāt al-aʽyān…, op. cit., vol. III, p. 129, no. 362. He however includes extensive information about the origins of Ibn al-Qāsim’s ancestors: see above n. 11.

    51See above n. 42.

    52See above n. 14.

    53I will present these materials in a forthcoming study.

    54The list that follows is based on the literary sources, and I will only briefly refer to certain manuscript materials. In order to draw up this list I have used the database Historia de los Autores y Transmisores de al-Andalus (HATA), online at http://kohepocu.cchs.csic.es/. The Andalusi scholar Ḥusayn b. ʿĀṣim b. Muslim b. Kaʿb b. Muḥammad b. ʿAlqama b. Ğannāb b. Muslim al-Ṯaqafī (d. 180/796 or 208/823) transmitted Ibn al-Qāsim’s Kutub: Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ, Tartīb al-madārik…, op. cit., vol. IV, p. 121; M. Fierro, “Los Banū ʿĀṣim al-Ṯaqafī, antepasados de Ibn al-Zubayr”, Al-Qanṭara, 7, 1986, p. 53–84, see especially p. 61, n. 41.

    55M. Muranyi, “A Unique Manuscript from Kairouan in the British Library: the Samāʿ-work of Ibn al-Qāsim al-ʿUtaqī and Issues of Methodology”, in H. Berg (ed.), Method and Theory in the Study of Islamic Origins, Leiden, Brill, 2003, p. 325–368. For the latter see above n. 1.

    56Mağālis Ibn al-Qāsim allatī saʾala ʿanhā Mālik, ed. by M. Bāḥū, Ribat, Ṭūb Brīs, [2010].

    57Ibn Ḫayr, Fahrasa, ed. by F. Codera and J. Ribera, 2 vols., Zaragoza, 1893, vol. I, p. 254.

    58Al-Ġamrī, Al-Tasmiya wa-l-ḥikāyāt ʿan nuẓarāʾ Mālik wa-aṣḥabihi wa-aṣḥāb aṣḥābihi wa-yalīhi Ḏikr fahrasat al-kutub al-muṣannafa ʿalā maḏhab ahl al-Madīna, ed. by R. b. Ṣāliḥ al-Ḥasrī, Rabat, al-Rābiṭa al-muḥammadiyya li-l-ʿulamāʾ Markaz al-dirāsāt wa-l-abḥāṯ wa-iḥyāʾ al-turāṯ, 1436/2015, p. 106 and 161.

    59Abū Zurʿa al-Rāzī, Al-Ḍuʿafāʾ/Ağwibatuhu ʿalā asʾilat al-Barḏaʿī, 3 vols., Medina, Maktabat Ibn al-Qayyim, 1989, vol. II, p. 532–533. Abū ʿUṯmān al-Barḏaʿī (d. 292/905) was Abū Zurʿa’s student: Suʾalāt al-Barḏaʿī, 2nd ed., Cairo, Dār al-Wafāʾ, 1988. The circumstances of al-Asadiyya’s composition and its relation to the Mudawwana, are also mentioned in al-Ġamrī, al-Tasmiya wa-l-ḥikāyāt…, op. cit., p. 102–103 (his source is the Iraqi Mālikī al-Abharī), 129–131 and 150. Muranyi has found little material evidence of the existence of the Asadiyya. This together with his mistaken belief that the earliest mention of the work was by al-Šīrāzī has led him to doubt the story of its existence. According to the literary sources, the Asadiyya disappeared from circulation once Saḥnūn corrected its transmissions under the guidance of Ibn al-Qāsim, so that his materials spread while Asad’s were forgotten.

    60Ibn Ḥāriṯ al-Ḫušanī (d. 361/971), Aḫbār al-fuqahāʾ wa-l-muḥaddiṯīn (Historia de los alfaquíes y tradicionistas de al-Andalus), ed. by M. L. Ávila, L. Molina, Madrid, CSIC/ICMA, 1992, p. 359, no. 493.

    61Ibn al-Qāsim, Al-Muwaṭṭaʾ riwāyat Abī ʿAbd Allāh ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Qāsim al-ʿUtaqī: Talḫīṣ Ibn al-Qābisī, ed. by al-S. M. b. ʿAlawī al-Mālikī, 3rd edition, n. p., 1424/2003; Ibn ʿAṭiyya, Fihris, ed. by M. Abū l-Ağfān and M. al-Zāhī, Beirut, Dār al-Ġarb al-islāmī, 1980, p. 103.

    62Al-Ġamrī, al-Tasmiya wa-l-ḥikāyāt…, op. cit., p. 104.

    63M. Muranyi, Beiträge zur Geschichte der ḥadīṯ- und Rechtsgelehrsamkeit der Mālikiyya in Nordafrika bis zum 5.Jh.D.H. Bio-bibliographische Notizen aus der Moscheebibliothek von Qairawān, Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz Verlag, 1997, p. 95; P. Chalmeta, s. v. “Ibn ʽUmar al-Kinānī, Yaḥyà”, in J. Lirola Delgado (ed.), Biblioteca de al-Andalus, vol. 5, De Ibn Saʽāda a Ibn Wuhayb, Almería, Fundación Ibn Tufayl de Estudios Árabes, 2007, p. 525–527, no. 1282.

    64In his time Ibn Zarb was considered to be the jurist with the most knowledge of Mālik’s doctrine. A contemporary jurist and judge of Cordoba, Muḥammad b. Isḥāq b. al-Salīm (d. 367/977), was reported to have told him, “If Ibn al-Qāsim had seen you, he would have been impressed”. On his biography see Documentación, s. v. “Ibn Zarb, Abū Bakr”, in J. Lirola Delgado (ed.), Biblioteca de al-Andalus, vol. 6, De Ibn al-Ŷabbāb a Nubḏat al-ʽaṣr, Almería, Fundación Ibn Tufayl de Estudios Árabes, 2009, p. 256–257, no. 1431.

    65D. Vázquez Paluch, The Establishment of the Maliki School in Muslim Spain, PhD Dissertation, School of Oriental and African Studies (University of London), 2008, p. 236. I wish to thank the author for allowing me to quote his unpublished work.

    66Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ, Tartīb al-madārik…, op. cit., vol. VIII, p. 210.

    67See above n. 39.

    68Muranyi, “A Unique Manuscript from Kairouan”, art. cit., p. 352, 354. See also al-Ġamrī, al-Tasmiya wa-l-ḥikāyāt…, op. cit., p. 153.

    69On the author see B. Villuendas Sabaté, s. v. “al-Ŷubayrī, Abū ʽUbayd”, in Jorge Lirola Delgado (ed.), Biblioteca de al-Andalus, vol. 7, De al-Qabrīrī a Zumurrud, Almería, Fundación Ibn Tufayl de Estudios Árabes, 2012, p. 670–672, no. 1863. On the work see Vázquez Paluch, The Establishment of the Maliki School…, op. cit., p. 197–212. It has been edited by al-Ḥ. Ḥamdūšī, Beirut, Dār Ibn Ḥazm li-l-Ṭibāʿa wa-al-Našr wa-al-Tawzīʿ, 2007.

    70Vázquez Paluch, The Establishment of the Maliki School…, op. cit., p. 201.

    71Ibid., p. 207.

    72J. Brockopp, s. v. “Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam, ʿAbdallāh”, in Encyclopaedia of Islam3; also id., Early Mālikī Law: Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam and his Major Compendium of Jurisprudence, Leiden, Brill, 2000 and “The Minor compendium of Ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam (d. 214/829) and its reception in the early Mālikī school”, Islamic Law and Society, 12/2, 2005, p. 149–181.

    73ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbd al-Ḥakam, al-Muḫtaṣar al-kabīr, ed. by A. ibn ʿA. al-K. Nağīb, [Dublin/Cairo], Markaz Nağībawayh li-l-Maḫṭūṭāt wa-Ḫidmat al-Turāṯ/Tawzīʿ al-Maktabat al-Tawfīqīyah, 1432/2011; ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbd al-Ḥakam, al-Muḫtaṣar al-ṣaġīr, riwāyat Abī ʿAbd Allāh al-Barqī, ed. by ʿU. ʿA. Abū Bakr Zāriyā, Riyad/Cairo, Dār Ibn al-Qayyim li-l-Našr wa-l-Tawzīʿ/Dār Ibn ʿAffān li-l-Našr wa-l-Tawzīʿ, 2013. See also ʿUbayd Allāh ibn Muḥammad al-Barqī, Ziyādat iḫtilāf fuqahāʾ al-amṣār fī l-Muḫtaṣar al-ṣaġīr li-ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAbd al-Ḥakam, Dubai, Ğamʿiyyat Dār al-Birr, 2012 and al-Abharī, Šarḥ al-Šayḫ Abī Bakr al-Abharī al-Baġdādī al-Mālikī… li-Kitāb al-Ğāmiʿ li-ʿAbd Allāh b. ʿAbd al-Ḥakam, Beirut, Dār al-Ġarb al-Islāmī, 2004.

    74C. Melchert, The Formation of the Sunni Schools of Law, 9th‑10th Centuries C.E., Leiden, Brill, 1997, p. 122.

    75Ismāʿīl b. Isḥāq al-Qāḍī, Aḥkām al-Qurʾān, ed. by ʿĀ. Ḥ. Ṣabrī, Beirut, Dār Ibn Ḥazm, 2005; Ibn al-Ğallāb al-Baṣrī, al-Tafrīʿ fī fiqh al-Imām Mālik ibn Anas, ed. by S. Khasrawī Ḥasan, 2 vols., Beirut, Dār al-Kutub al-ʿIlmiyya, Manšūrāt Muḥammad ʿAlī al-Bayḍūn, 2007. For al-Abharī see n. 73 above.

    76Vázquez Paluch, The Establishment of the Maliki School…, op. cit., p. 136.

    77Ibid., p. 137.

    78Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ, Tartīb al-madārik…, op. cit., vol. I, p. 260; Vázquez Paluch, The Establishment of the Maliki School…, op. cit., p. 49.

    79Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr, al-Intiqāʾ fī faḍāʾil al-aʾimma al-ṯalāṯa al-fuqahāʾ, Beirut, Maktab al-maṭbūʿāt al-islāmiyya, 1997, p. 92–96.

    80This attempt on the part of the Cordoban caliph can be linked to the legal activity of Qāḍī l-Nuʿmān, the chief judge of the Fatimids, who had collected the transmissions of the Shīʿī imams to provide a solid foundation for his composition of what can be considered an Ismāʿīlī legal code under the Fatimid imam-caliph al-Muʿizz (r. 341/953–365/975). See on this process K. Rajani, Making Sense of Ismaili Traditions: The Modes and Meanings of the Transmission of Ḥadīth in the Works of Qāḍī al-Nuʿmān (d. 363/974), PhD thesis, Exeter University, 2019. On the link between the two cases see M. Fierro, “ʿAbd al-Raḥmān III and the Cordoban caliphate”, in M. Gerli (ed.), The Routledge Hispanic Studies Companion to Medieval Iberia: Unity in Diversity, Abingdon, Oxfordshire/New York, Routledge, 2021, p. 152–166.

    81Al-Wanšarīsī (d. 914/1508), al-Miʿyār al-muʿrib wa-l-ğāmiʿ al-muġrib ʿan fatāwī ahl Ifrīqiya wa-l-Andalus wa-l-Maġrib, ed. by M. Ḥağğī, 13 vols., Rabat, Wizārat al-Awqāf wa-al-šuʾūn al-islāmīya li l-Mamlaka al-Maġribīya, 1401/1981, vol. IX, p. 424, 451, 467.

    82J. Brockopp, “Saḥnūn’s Mudawwanah and the Piety of the ‘Sharīʿah-minded’”, in A. K. Reinhart and R. Gleave (eds.), Islamic law in theory: Studies on jurisprudence in honor of Bernard Weiss, Leiden, Brill, 2014, p. 129–142.

    83Al-Šaʿbī, al-Aḥkām, ed. by al-Ṣ. al-Ḥalawī, Beirut, Dār al-Ġarb al-Islāmī, 1992, p. 114–115.

    84Vázquez Paluch, The Establishment of the Maliki School…, op. cit., p. 264.

    85M. Fierro, “Tres familias andalusíes de época omeya apodadas Banū Ziyād”, in M. Marín, J. Zanón (eds.), Estudios Onomástico-Biográficos de al-Andalus. V, Madrid, CSIC, 1992, p. 85–142.

    86M. Ben Cheneb, Classes des savants de l’Ifrīqīya par Abuʼ l-ʽArab Moḥammed ben Aḥmed ben Tamīm et Moḥammed ben al-Ḥāriṯ ben Asad al-Ḫošanī, Paris/Alger, Publications de la Faculté des lettres d’Alger, 1915/1920, p. 51–52 and 81–83 (Arabic text)/p. 153–157 (French translation), where no mention is made of his compilation known as al-Asadiyya; U. Rizzitano, “Asad Ibn al-Furāt. Faqīh e qāḍī d’Ifriqīyah”, Rivista di Studi Orientali, 36, 1961, p. 225–243.

    87P. Cano Ávila, s.v. “Ibn Dīnār, ʽĪsà”, in J. Lirola Delgado and J. M. Puerta Vílchez (eds.), Biblioteca de al-Andalus, vol. 3, De Ibn al-Dabbāg a Ibn Kurz, Almería, Fundación Ibn Tufayl de Estudios Árabes, 2004, p. 69–74, no. 436; D. Vazquez-Paluch, “The Legal Thought of an Early Andalusian Jurist: ʽĪsā b. Dīnār”, International Journal for the Semiotics of Law, 29, 2016, p. 425–453.

    88Ibn al-Qāsim’s family had come to Egypt from Syria, more specifically from Filisṭīn (Ramla), so they belonged to the Syrian ğund: see below n. 91.

    89A database created under the leadership of María Luisa Ávila and Luis Molina, available online at https://www.eea.csic.es/pua/.

    90This can be corroborated in HATA (see above n. 54). The earliest ʿUtaqī scholar who transmitted the Mudawwana in al-Andalus was Abū l-Faḍl ʿAmīra b. ʿAbd al-Raḥmān (or Muḥammad) b. Marwān b. Ḫaṭṭāb b. ʿAbd al-Ğabbār b. Ḫaṭṭāb b. Marwān b. Naḏīr al-ʿUtaqī al-Tudmīrī (d. after 238/852).

    91In his case, he was not a descendant of the conquering army but of the ğund-s sent by the Umayyad caliph to fight the Berber rebellion in 123/743, whose suppression led their leader Balğ b. Bišr to seek refuge in al-Andalus: E. Manzano Moreno, “El asentamiento y la organización de los ŷund sirios en al-Andalus”, Al-Qanṭara, 14, 1993, p. 327–359.

    92A process documented by P. Crone, Slaves on Horses: The evolution of the Islamic polity, New York, Cambridge University Press, 1980. The Arab army was dissolved in Egypt in 833 (Brockopp, “The formation of Islamic law…”, art. cit., p. 128), that is, 27 years after Ibn al-Qāsim’s death.

    93Brockopp, “The formation of Islamic law…”, art. cit., p. 131.

    94M. Marín, “Biographical Dictionaries and Social History of al-Andalus: trade and scholarship”, Scripta Mediterranea, 19–20, 1998–1999, p. 239–257. See also Ch. Picard, La mer et les musulmans d’Occident au Moyen Âge : viiie‑xiiie siècle, Paris, Presses universitaires de France, 1997.

    95Ch. Picard, A. Borrut, “Rābata, Ribāt, Rābita : une institution à reconsidérer”, in Ph. Sénac, N. Prouteau (eds.), Chrétiens et musulmans en Méditerranée médiévale (viiie-xiiie siècle). Échanges et contacts, Poitiers, CECSM (Civilisation médiévale), 2003, p. 33–65.

    96I will expand upon this point as regards the Mālikī legal school in future studies.

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    Fierro, M. (2023). Ibn al-Qāsim (d. 191/806), the Egyptian Student of Mālik b. Anas: a Preliminary Survey. In A. Bill, A. Borrut, Y. Dejugnat, C. Rhoné-Quer, & J. Vanz (éds.), Mers et rivages d’Islam (1‑). Éditions de la Sorbonne. https://doi.org/10.4000/13iut
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    Fierro, Maribel. « Ibn Al-Qāsim (d. 191 806), the Egyptian Student of Mālik b. Anas: A Preliminary Survey ». Mers Et Rivages d’Islam, édité par Alexandra Bill et al., Éditions de la Sorbonne, 2023, https://doi.org/10.4000/13iut.

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    Bill, Alexandra, Antoine Borrut, Yann Dejugnat, Camille Rhoné-Quer, et Jennifer Vanz, éd. Mers et rivages d’Islam. Paris: Éditions de la Sorbonne, 2023. https://doi.org/10.4000/13ivf.
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