Leaning against a column of the Prophet’s own mosque, only yards from where the Prophet himself was buried, Malik sorted through this material, organized it by topic and recorded it in his Muwatta’, the earliest surviving book of Hadiths and Islamic law. Consisting of approximately 1,800 reports, 527 are Hadiths of the Prophet, 613 are rulings made by Companions, 285 are the rulings of Successors and the remainder are Malik’s own opinions.
