Recordings › The Legendary Imam Malik Ibn Anas | Mufti Abu Layth · 10 Mar 2023 › Segment 6 of 14
Was Imam Malik an ascetic?
hadeeth ahadith ahaadeeth hadis hadees ahaadith malik ibn anas malik bin anas imam maalik imam malik ibn anas imaam imams prayer leader muftis sunna sunnat sunan prophetic practice iman imaan eemaan eeman al-madinah madeenah yathrib al-din ad-deen ad-din religionA wealthy cloth merchant who enjoyed fine clothes and meat
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This segment23:27 to 26:01 · 2 min 34 sGeneral teaching
What this part covers
machinesummary, machine-writtenNo: Imam Malik was a wealthy merchant who enjoyed fine clothes and daily meat, unlike the ascetic tradition, and was criticised for it.
In more detail
Mufti Abu Layth says Malik became a very successful trader, a cloth merchant whose investments were traded in Madinah, and that he spent his wealth on expensive clothes and enjoyed what God had given him without shyness. He says there is an ascetic tradition in Islam of abstaining from the dunya, but Malik was not from it. He says Malik ate meat daily, holding that it kept people strong so that people of faith had a presence and their talk of the deen carried awe, and that he was criticised for this as indulgence.
Position stated
Mufti Abu Layth says Imam Malik was not from the ascetic tradition in Islam; he enjoyed the wealth God had given him.
“there is a tradition like that in Islam but Imam Malik was not from that tradition he spent money he enjoyed money”
Category: historical claim
Kind: general teachingTranscript
machine23:27 to 26:01 · click a time to seek · dotted terms open the glossary
not only that perfectly um instantiates this this debate of Hadith versus Sunnah so these were um Imam Malik's his teachers some of his teachers he he lived in Medina he was a Trader as he grew up he got into trade he was incredibly successful um in trade people said he would um he was a merchant in cloth and things like that he would have Investments coming to Madina he would then trade them in Medina and he made a lot of money from it so he was wealthy and he
took to it to spend money as well he would buy himself expensive suits he would he would spend money he was he was like very not only wealthy but he he enjoyed the world that Allah had given him and he and he took pride in that he wasn't shy about it so sometimes we do have a tradition in Islam where people are very they prefer to almost a a hermetic a hermetics or a hermit kind of or an asceticism that to abstain from the Dunya so there are
there is a tradition like that in Islam but Imam Malik was not from that tradition he spent money he enjoyed money he uh was known to really he was particular about his food as well he would always eat meat I don't think the vegans would have liked him for that matter always on a daily basis he would he said that that meat helps people maintain a strong posture I guess protein is what he was talking
about and he said well it would keep people strong and the faith would if they were people of Faith then people around them felt their presence and by feeling their presence the faith had a presence as in when they spoke of the Deen it had an awe to it so he was very and he was criticized a lot about this kind of stuff so he did he did speak about that let me just oh this I see this just moved yeah so he did um he did do that that was um
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Cite this segment
Stable id, transcript version and tier are part of the citation. Every change to a transcript is logged.Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment 2023-03-10-S06, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/vhqvm47pns0/s/6/ (accessed 1 November 2026)
- APA 7
Mufti Abu Layth. (2023, March 10). Was Imam Malik an ascetic? [Video, segment 2023-03-10-S06, auto-transcribed, may contain errors]. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://muftiabulayth.org/r/vhqvm47pns0/s/6/
- Chicago author-date
Mufti Abu Layth. 2023. "Was Imam Malik an ascetic?" Video, segment 2023-03-10-S06, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Recorded March 10, 2023. Accessed November 1, 2026. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/vhqvm47pns0/s/6/
- BibTeX
@misc{abulayth-2023-03-10-S06, author = {Mufti Abu Layth}, title = {{Was Imam Malik an ascetic?}}, year = {2023}, month = {3}, date = {2023-03-10}, howpublished = {\url{https://muftiabulayth.org/r/vhqvm47pns0/s/6/}}, url = {https://muftiabulayth.org/r/vhqvm47pns0/s/6/}, organization = {Mufti Abu Layth Archive}, urldate = {2026-11-01}, note = {Segment 2023-03-10-S06, auto-transcribed, may contain errors} }
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