Death of Imam Mālik ibn Anas

Mālik ibn Anas, the imam of Madinah, died there in Rabīʿ al-Awwal 179 in his mid-eighties, and was buried in al-Baqīʿ. He had spent his whole scholarly life in the city, teaching in the Prophet's ﷺ mosque, and famously declined to have his Muwaṭṭaʾ imposed as a single binding code when the caliphs offered — on the grounds that the companions' knowledge had spread to other lands.

The Muwaṭṭaʾ, his arrangement of Madinan practice and ḥadīth, is among the earliest surviving works of Islamic law, and the school built on his method became the madhhab of North and West Africa and al-Andalus.

The chronicles agree on the year and mostly on the month; no day is agreed, so this entry carries month precision.