Muwatta, Book of Jihad

The Book of Jihad is the seventh 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 571 to 604 of the first volume in the PDF pagination, and contains 68 numbered texts (1283–1350) in twenty-one chapters. Most of it concerns jihad and the rulings on raiding and booty, and it includes hadiths on martyrdom and on washing the martyrs. ^{1 2}

• Encouragement to jihad (1283–1290): the hadith that the fighter is like one who fasts and stands in prayer; God's guarantee to one who sets out to strive; the best of people in station; the Companions' pledge to hear and obey; and the prohibition on taking the Qur'an with a traveller into the enemy's land. ^{1 3}
• The prohibition on killing women and children (1290–1293): the story of Ibn Abi al-Huqayq; Abu Bakr's ten instructions to Yazid ibn Abi Sufyan (may God be pleased with him); and the letter of Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz on the conduct of a military expedition. ^{4 5}
• Keeping a grant of safe conduct (1294–1295): the report of Umar concerning the non-Arab man who held out on the mountain, and Malik's saying that a sign of safe conduct has the same standing as speech. ⁶
• Booty, the extra share, and the fifth (1296–1315): who is given something during a raid; the extra share taken from the beginning of the booty; spoils in the extra share; the division of horses; what the fifth is not due on; what may be eaten before division; and what is returned before the division. ^{7 8}
• Theft from booty, and martyrdom (1319–1334): the hadith on theft from booty at Hunayn and Khaybar; the hadiths on the martyrs of Uhud; who among the martyrs is prayed over; and the washing of Umar ibn al-Khattab (may God be pleased with him). ^{9 10}
• Horses and races, the people of treaty and of conquest, and burial in one grave (1335–1350): horse races; the hadith of Umm Haram; the hadith of Sa'd ibn al-Rabi' on the day of Uhud; the land of those among the protected people who embraced Islam; and the burial of Amr ibn al-Jamuh (may God be pleased with him) and Abdullah ibn Amr in one grave. ^{11 12}

Malik begins with hadiths encouraging jihad from the Prophet ﷺ, transmitted from Abu Hurayra (may God be pleased with him), and then moves to the rulings of war in the sayings of the Companions and the Successors. He mentions the reports of Umar, Abu Bakr and Umar ibn Abd al-Aziz, and sometimes says "this hadith is neither agreed upon nor acted on", as he does in the report about the non-Arab man. He distinguishes between the people of treaty and the people of conquest in the question of land and of Islam, and holds that the imam exercises independent judgement over the extra share. ^{6 12}

The editor records the transmitters from Malik and refers to the two Sahihs and the Sunan, and he quotes Ibn Abd al-Barr on disconnected and connected transmission. Among these points: the hadith on theft from booty, from Amr ibn Shu'ayb, is disconnected in Malik's transmission; the hadith on the martyrs, through Abu al-Nadr, is disconnected; and the report of Umar's supplication that he should not be killed by the hand of one who has prostrated to God once is cut off. The editor notes that al-Bukhari connected the report of the burial of Amr ibn al-Jamuh, and that the hadiths on horses and on trained horses are preserved in the two Sahihs from the hadith of Ibn Umar. ^{9 13}

Each text of the book has its own record. It gives the highest narrator and the chapter of the text, presents the substance of the report in the museum's wording, and records the editor's takhrij where it is needed. See Jihad, Uhud and Khaybar for the places where the book's rulings appear. ¹