MĀLIK'S REASONING 313

applied by Shāfiʿī (Tr. III, 30), is unknown to Mālik; in Muw., Mālik makes an arbitrary choice between the traditions, following the practice; in Mud. i. 49, he blends the considerations underlying both traditions in his reasoning.

Muw. ii. 68 (and the implications of Mud. ii. 108): Mālik's doctrine is practical common-sense, and far less inconsistent than Shāfiʿī's strict reasoning (Tr. III, 52) makes it appear; Mālik himself gives sound systematic reasoning which goes a long way towards meeting Shāfiʿī's objections, and he counters a possible objection in detail.

Muw. ii. 196 and Tr. III, 36: The motive of Mālik's reasoning is material and practical, as opposed to that of Shāfiʿī which is formal and technical.

Muw. iii. 3 and Ikh. 300: Both Mālik and Shāfiʿī try to harmonize two seemingly contradictory groups of traditions and to find a legal criterion which would enable them to admit both; whereas Mālik's reasoning is superficially practical and expedient, Shāfiʿī's is formal and technical; but the way in which Mālik expresses it obviates most of Shāfiʿī's criticisms.

Muw. iii. 129: On the details of the doctrine on the re-selling of objects other than food, before taking possession, Mālik's reasoning is practical, concerned with the elimination of cases which seem to fall directly under the prohibition of usury, and not with pursuing this prohibition to its last systematic consequences.

Mud. iii. 118: Mālik tries to justify the inconsistent Medinese practice by a far-fetched interpretation of Koranic passages; the formalism of his reasoning recalls that of Ibn Abī Lailā (above, p. 292).

Mud. v. 2: On the problem of the presumption of intercourse if husband and wife have been left together in private, Mālik adopts the practical and rough-and-ready distinction current in Medina, and Shāfiʿī blames him for his technical inconsistency (Tr. III, 75); Mālik indeed refers to a somewhat similar case, but this again is not strictly parallel, as Shāfiʿī points out.

Mud. v. 55: Mālik subjects a declaration to a careful philological interpretation, worthy of Shāfiʿī at his best (but Shāfiʿī ignores it: Tr. III, 140); in Mud. v. 58, Mālik adds a practical and material consideration, typical of the early period but very commendable, in favour of his doctrine; this argument is older than Mālik himself because he calls the same distinction in a parallel case “the best that I have heard” (Muw. iii. 37).

This primitive reasoning leads Mālik sometimes into in-