Al-Mudawwanah al-Kubra: The Founding Document of Maliki Fiqh

Al-Mudawwanah al-Kubra (The Great Codification) is one of the most important legal texts in Islamic history — the foundational record of Imam Malik ibn Anas's jurisprudence and the single most authoritative reference for the Maliki school. It occupies in Maliki fiqh a position comparable to that of Imam al-Shafi'i's Al-Umm in the Shafi'i school: a primary source of immense scope and authority, preserving the original legal teachings of the school's founder.

The text of Al-Mudawwanah traces its origins to Abd ar-Rahman ibn al-Qasim al-'Utaqi (132–191 AH / 750–806 CE), one of Imam Malik's most distinguished Egyptian students. Ibn al-Qasim spent twenty years in Medina studying directly with Malik, recording his teacher's legal opinions and refining his understanding of them. After Malik's death in 179 AH, Ibn al-Qasim continued to teach Maliki fiqh in Egypt.

The definitive compilation known today as Al-Mudawwanah was assembled by Abd as-Salam ibn Sa'id Sahnun al-Tanukhi (160–240 AH / 776–854 CE), a Tunisian scholar who became the dominant figure in the transmission of Maliki fiqh to North Africa. Sahnun had studied in Medina with Ibn al-Qasim and had access to an earlier draft compilation made by the Andalusian scholar Asad ibn al-Furat. He revised and expanded this draft, submitted questions to Ibn al-Qasim for clarification, and produced the definitive text that bears his name as compiler.

The format of Al-Mudawwanah is unique in Islamic legal literature: it takes the form of a systematic series of questions and answers, with Sahnun posing legal questions to Ibn al-Qasim, who answers based on what he learned from Imam Malik. Where Malik's direct opinion is available, Ibn al-Qasim cites it; where it is not, he provides his own view based on Maliki principles. This question-and-answer format gives the text an immediacy and dialogical quality unlike the more systematic treatises of later fiqh literature.

Al-Mudawwanah was received with extraordinary authority in the Maliki tradition. Scholars from North Africa and Andalusia made pilgrimages to acquire it; it became the primary reference for Maliki judges and muftis across the western Islamic world. The Maliki scholars of North Africa and Andalusia debated its positions exhaustively, and it became the foundation on which the entire edifice of Western Maliki scholarship was built.

The scope of Al-Mudawwanah is comprehensive: it covers purification, prayer, zakah, fasting, hajj, trade and commercial transactions, family law, criminal law, judicial procedure, oaths, and vows. Its length — across multiple volumes in printed editions — reflects the density of legal material it preserves and the granularity with which Maliki positions are recorded.

Imam Malik ibn Anas (93–179 AH / 711–795 CE), whose jurisprudence Al-Mudawwanah preserves, was a Medinan scholar of unrivaled authority in his time. Born and raised in Medina, he spent his entire scholarly career there, rarely leaving the city of the Prophet (peace be upon him). His approach to law was shaped by profound reverence for the living Sunnah of Medina and a cautious conservatism about extending legal reasoning beyond what the community of Medina had practiced and transmitted. His famous caution — 'I do not know' — when asked questions he was uncertain about has become legendary in Islamic scholarly culture as an emblem of scholarly integrity.

To engage with Al-Mudawwanah is to engage with the earliest stratum of systematic Islamic legal thinking preserved in a written text — a direct window into how the first generations of formal Muslim jurists thought through the practical demands of living by the Quran and Sunnah.