Muwatta, Book of Pre-emption (shufa)

The Book of Pre-emption (Shufa) is the twenty-first 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), in the second volume. It occupies pages 251 to 258 in the PDF pagination, and contains 24 numbered texts (2079–2102) in two chapters. It concerns pre-emption and the houses and lands in which it applies, and those in which it does not. ^{1 2}

• Where pre-emption applies (2079–2094): pre-emption among partners in proportion to their shares, gift and sale on credit, the absence of the claimant, inheritance, and the buyer's rescission. ^{3 4}
• Where pre-emption does not apply (2095–2102): boundaries, a road, a well, a male palm, animals and cloth, and the effect of a long lapse of time in ending the right. ^{4 2}

Malik builds pre-emption on the rule "partners in land or a house", gives it a practical limit by the possibility of division, sets no fixed period for absence, and states that the buyer must bring the matter of pre-emption before the ruler. ^{5 2}

The editor quotes al-Bayhaqi and Ibn Abd al-Barr on the disagreement of transmitters over the hadith of pre-emption from al-Zuhri, and notes that Malik preferred his cut-off version. ³

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