The Fundamental Principles of Imam Malik's Fiqh
Malik did not record the fundamental principles on which he based his school and on whose basis he derived his judgements and to which he limited himself in the derivation of his rulings. In that respect he resembled his contemporary, Abu Hanifa, but not his student, ash-Shafi'i, who did record the principles he used in derivation and defined them precisely, specifying the motives which moved him to consider them and their position in deduction.
Nonetheless, Malik did indicate the principles he used in some of his fatwas, questions and the hadiths which had muttasil (uninterrupted), munqati' (broken), or mursal (link missing) isnads and balaghat (without isnad) hadith, even if he did not precisely explain his method or defend it or explain the motives which moved him to adopt it and why he used that method rather than another.
For instance, the Muwatta' makes it clear to us that Malik uses mursal, munqati' and balaghat hadiths but does not explain how he chose them because it does not go into the problems concerning the isnads. The reason for this is that Malik only transmitted from people in whose mursal and balaghat hadith he had absolute confidence. That is why his great concern was with the choice of transmitter. When he had confidence in the character, intelligence and knowledge of the transmitter he dispensed with the chain of narration.
Malik clearly stated that he took the practice of the people of Madina as a source and explained the motives which led him to do so. The Muwatta' shows that he used it in making analogy, as he when he made an analogy between the wife of a missing man when he returns to her after she has married someone else and someone who divorces his wife with a revocable divorce and then takes her back when she knows about the divorce but not the taking back and consequently remarries.
Thus in the Muwatta' you will see clear statements or indications of Malik's principles of derivation even if he did not actually clarify or identify them specifically. For instance, he did not clarify the rules and grades of the underlying legal principles ('illa) in analogy and such things.
The fuqaha' of the Maliki school have done with Malik's fiqh what the fuqaha' of the Hanafi school have done with their school – studied the secondary rulings and derived from them what can validly be employed as fundamental principles on which to base deduction. They called the principles they derived in this way the 'fundamental principles (usul) of Malik'. For instance, they say that Malik employed certain textual principles which they called'mafhum al-mukhalafa' (an interpretation which diverges from the obvious meaning of a given text), 'fahwa al-khatab' (implied meanings of a given text), and 'dhahir' (apparent meanings of a given text). They say that he also said certain things about general unspecific texts. The truth is that although these principles are transmitted as having been formulated by him, they are in fact derived from secondary judgements reported from him; and the specific proofs of these principles are derived from the actual context or were formulated by the fuqaha' who came after him. Deduction from texts can only validly be undertaken when the necessary evidence exists.
We do not automatically have to accept these principles as being the usul of Malik's school since they are the formulations of scholars who post-dated him but nor must we refute them simply because they were not transmitted by Malik himself. We are bound, however, to reject those of them which we think contradict any clear, firm statements he is definitely known to have made or those which apply to some secondary rulings he made but not to most of them. Scholars deem that established propositions should be adopted and respected unless the proof of their opposite is established. In that case they have to be rejected because they have been proved invalid by clear evidence not by simple denial.
