Abu Bakr al-Maliki

Abū Bakr ʿAbdallāh ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAbdallāh al-Qurashī al-Qayrawānī al-Mālikī (fl. 1036–1057) was an Ifrīqiyan historian, Mālikī jurist and Ashʿarī theologian and traditionist. He played a major role in spreading Mālikism and Ashʿarism in Ifrīqiya.[1]

Al-Mālikī was born in Kairouan. His father, Muḥammad, was trained in sharīʿa (law) and ḥadīth (tradition) and wrote a biography of the jurist Abu 'l-Ḥasan al-Qābiṣī. Al-Mālikī studied in Kairouan under Abū Bakr ibn ʿAbd al-Raḥmān and Muḥammad ibn ʿAbbās al-Anṣārī, who died in 1036. After studying for a time in the emirate of Sicily, he taught in Kairouan, where al-Māzarī was one of his students.[2] According al-Dabbāgh, writing over two centuries later, al-Mālikī remained in Kairouan after the Hilālī sack of 1057, when most other scholars decamped to Mahdia.[1][2] He died sometime after this date,[1] perhaps in 1081 or 1097.[2]

Only one work by al-Mālikī has survived, Riyāḍ al-nufūs ("Gardens of the Souls"[1] or "Meadow of Souls").[2] It is a biographical dictionary of the Mālikīs of Ifrīqiya.[1] It contains 275 biographies and is a valuable historical source. Later Muslim scholars who used it include al-Qāḍī ʿIyāḍ and al-Ṭurṭūshī. Al-Mālikī was probably inspired to write by the twin devastations of the Hilālī invasion and the Norman conquest of Sicily.[2]