62 SUNNA, 'PRACTICE' AND 'LIVING TRADITION'

In Muw. iii. 181 ff., Mālik establishes the sunna by a tradition from the Prophet and by references to the opinions of 'Umar b. 'Abdal'azīz, Abū Salama b. 'Abdalrahmān, and Sulaimān b. Yasār. He adds systematic reasoning because 'one wishes to understand', but he returns to the sunna as decisive: 'the sunna is proof enough, but one also wants to know the reason, and this is it.' It does not occur to Mālik to fall back on the tradition from the Prophet as such, as the decisive argument, a thing which Shāfi'ī does in Tr. III, 148 (p. 249).

In Muw. i. 196, Mālik quotes a decision of Zuhrī, ending with the words: 'this is the sunna'; and Mālik adds that he has found this to be the doctrine of the scholars of Medina.

In Muw. iii. 110, Mālik speaks of the 'sunna in the past' (madat al-sunna) on a point of doctrine on which there are no traditions.

Mud. i. 115 establishes the practice of Medina as sunna by two traditions transmitted by Ibn Wahb, which Mālik had as yet ignored,¹ and by references to the first four Caliphs and to other old authorities.

In Mud. v. 163, Ibn Qāsim says: 'So it is laid down in the traditions (āthār) and sunnas referring to the Companions of the Prophet.'

The expression 'sunna of the Prophet' occurs only rarely in the ancient Medinese texts. In Muw. iv. 86 f., Mālik says that he has heard it related that the Prophet said: 'I leave you two things after my death; if you hold fast to them you cannot go astray; they are the Book of Allah and the sunna of his Prophet.'² Mālik gives no isnād, and this use of sunna is not part of Medinese legal reasoning proper. The same applies to the tradition, related with a full isnād through Mālik in Muw. Shaib. 389, that 'Umar b. 'Abdal'azīz instructed Abū Bakr b. 'Amr b. Hazm to write down all the existing traditions and sunnas of the Prophet, traditions of 'Umar and the like, lest they got lost.³ For a third case, see below, p. 155.

The element of 'practice' in the Medinese 'living tradition' is expressed by terms such as 'amal 'practice', al-'amal al-mujtama' alaih 'generally agreed practice', al-amr 'indana 'our practice',