INTRODUCTION

In contrast to the Shāfi'ites, the Mālikīs preserved a considerable amount of material regarding the views of their Medinese founder, Mālik ibn Anas (d. 179/795), on non-legal matters. They did not, however, adhere strongly to this heritage in the manner of the ḥanbalites, nor did they elaborate it into a specifically Mālikī theology comparable to Māturīdism. Instead they adopted Ash'arism. In this they resembled the Shāfi'ites; but for whatever reasons, the Mālikī reception of Ash'arism does not seem to have provoked the sustained opposition within the school that characterises the Shāfi'ite case. Indeed the Shāfi'ite Subkī (d. 771/1370) describes the Māalikīs as the Ash'arites par excellence (akhassal-nās bi'l-Ash'arī), explaining that he had never heard of a non-Ash'arite Mālikī; and in another context he refers to the western Ash'arites as particularly rigid in their adherence to the exact doctrines of Ash'arī himself. An incidental but significant effect of this shared Ash'arism was to make the membrane between Mālikism and Shāfi'ism particularly permeable.

The history of Mālikī doctrines of forbidding wrong has to be seen against this background. I shall first consider the opinions transmitted from Mālike himself. These do not add up to a comprehensive doctrine, but they deal with several significant issues. I shall then turn to views contemporary with the Ash'arite phase of Mālikī thought. I have, however, already noted the absence of any specifically Ash'arite doctrine of forbidding wrong.