The Muwaṭṭaʾ is the first extant treatise on Islamic law, written by the eighth-century Medinan jurist Mālik b. Anas (d. 179/795). It provides an unparalleled window into the life of the early Muslim community of Medina—where the Prophet Muḥammad lived and died after immigrating from Mecca—as well as the rituals, laws, and customs that its members upheld years after his death. Harvard’s Program in Islamic Law, in conjunction with Harvard University Press, published an English translation of the Muwaṭṭaʾ in 2019, edited and translated by Professors Mohammad Fadel and Connell Monette. This translation is based on the recently published critical edition of the Muwaṭṭaʾ, The Royal Moroccan Edition (Rabat: Ministry of Endowments, 2013). With its extensive notes, the English edition is intended to make this important early legal text widely accessible to a broad spectrum of readers, including those interested in both legal history and Islamic Studies. This Online Companion to the Muwaṭṭaʾ makes the full texts of both the original Arabic edition and its English translation freely available online. We gratefully acknowledge the Moroccan Ministry of Endowments and Islamic Affairs for permissions to make the full Arabic text available online.
Image 1: Kingdom of Morocco National Library, MS No. J787: Colophon of the Muwaṭṭaʾ manuscript, copied by Ibn al-Ṭallāʿ, dated 595 AH.
Image 2: Kingdom of Morocco National Library, MS No. J787, Folio 1: Excerpt of manuscript of the Muwaṭṭaʾ, copied by Ibn al-Ṭallāʿ, dated 595 AH.
Image 3: Kingdom of Morocco National Library, MS No. D2911, Folio 1: Excerpt of manuscript of the Muwaṭṭaʾ, copied by Ibn al-Labbād, dated 613 AH.
This source is part of the Online Companion to the print edition al-Muwaṭṭaʾ, the Royal Moroccan Edition: The Recension of Yaḥyā Ibn Yaḥyā al-Laythī(Harvard Series in Islamic Law), edited and translated by Mohammad Fadel and Connell Monette (PIL/HUP, 2019).