Muwatta, Book of Seclusion (i'tikaf)

The Book of Seclusion (i'tikaf) is the fifth book of the Muwatta in the transmission of Yahya ibn Yahya al-Laythi from Malik ibn Anas, in the edition of Bashshar Awwad Ma'ruf (1997). It occupies pages 419 to 431 of the first volume in the PDF pagination, and contains 32 numbered texts (866–897) in ten chapters. Most of it concerns the rulings of seclusion and what is lawful and unlawful for one in seclusion, and it ends with the Night of Power ^{1 2}.

• The mention of seclusion and what is avoided in it (866–876): the hadith of Aisha on the Prophet ﷺ having his head combed, and going out for a human need; the prohibition on one in seclusion of visiting the sick except in passing; the permissibility of seclusion in any mosque where the Friday prayer is held; that one in seclusion does not spend the night except in the mosque; and that seclusion is an act like prayer and fasting, with no conditions attached to it ^{1 3}.
• Fasting as a condition of seclusion (877): the saying of al-Qasim ibn Muhammad and Nafi', the freedman of Ibn Umar, with evidence from the verse of the Cow, al-Baqara 187 ³.
• Leaving seclusion for the festival, and making it up (878–881): the seclusion of Abu Bakr ibn Abd al-Rahman in the house of Khalid ibn al-Walid (may God be pleased with him) until he attended the festival; the hadith of Amra on the tents of the Prophet's wives, and his saying: "Is righteousness what you attribute to them?"; and making up a seclusion missed through illness ^{4 5}.
• The voluntary seclusion and what is forbidden to one in seclusion (882–889): a woman who menstruates during her seclusion returns and builds on it; the ruling on marriage, intimacy and enjoyment; and Malik's distinction between one in seclusion and one in the state of pilgrim consecration (ihram) ^{5 6}.
• The Night of Power (890–897): the hadith of Abu Sa'id on the Prophet's seclusion in the middle ten nights and then the last ones, and his seeing water and mud on his forehead; hadiths on seeking it in the last ten nights, the last seven nights, and the night of the twenty-third; Malik's cut-off report on the lifespans of the nations; and Sa'id ibn al-Musayyab's saying about attending the night prayer ^{6 2}.

The book begins with hadiths from the Prophet, transmitted through Aisha and Amra, and then Malik returns to the opinions of the people of learning in Medina. In terms of transmission the book has a particular feature: the editor determines that from the words "and from here to the end of the Book of Seclusion", Yahya ibn Yahya did not hear it directly from Malik. He transmitted it from Ziyad ibn Abd al-Rahman al-Andalusi, known as Shabtun, and Shabtun had heard it from Malik earlier ^{4 7}.

The editor identifies the transmitters from Malik among his students, and refers to the two Sahihs, the Sunan and the Musnad al-Jami'. He quotes Ibn Abd al-Barr on connection and cutting. He shows that attributing the hadith of the tents to Ibn Shihab is a mistake. He notes that the hadith of the Night of Power, from Abu Sa'id, is cut off in Malik's version, though it is connected in the two Sahihs, and that the report on the lifespans of the nations has no known connected chain ^{7 8}.

Each text of the book has its own record. It gives, in their particular wording, what the text says, names its highest narrator and its chapter, and records the editor's takhrij, with a short excerpt from the text where it suits. See the Night of Power ¹.