Yasin Dutton has some very interesting works concerning the history of the Maliki school. Here are some sharply contrasting reviews of those works.
Motzki’s review of ‘The Origin’s of Islamic Law’ can be found here:
Haddad’s review of ‘Original Islam’ follows:
ORIGINAL ISLAM: MALIK AND THE madhhab OF MADINA
By Yasin Dutton. London and New York: Routledge, 2007.
Pp. xiii + 219. ISBN10: 0-415-33813-1.
ISBN13: 978-0-415-33813-4 (HB).
For three quarters of its pages the translation of a 9th-century
outdated anti-Shafi`i work advocating the superiority of the Maliki
School – Intisar al-Faqir al-Salik li-Tarjih madhhab al-Imam al-Kabir
Malik by Shams al-Din al-Ra`i al-Gharnati (782-853), an obscure
Andalo-Egyptian grammarian whom Imam al-Sakhawi described as a good poet
who possessed “a sharp tongue and sharp manners” – Original Islam‘s
unoriginal material and real author are shanghaied by Arabic Studies
Senior Lecturer at the University of Cape Town Yasin Dutton (a disciple
of…
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at-Tahawi 