Why Malik?

I found a used copy of Darío Fernández-Morera's The Myth of the Andalusian Paradise.

(Myth is an ISI book, like Spencer's Did Muhammad Exist? and - more to the point - Reilly's The Closing of the Muslim Mind (which sucks of course). It cites Emmet Scott's Mohammed and Charlemagne Revisited; which was NERP, not ISI, but both books are of the same stripe. UPDATE 8/18: the terlit review.)

Somewhere in all such books are perhaps-shorter books explaining how the relevant Islamic concepts took shape, and where and when. In Fernández's case, we're looking at extreme Malikite Islam from the end of the 700s AD to the fall of the Almoravids.

Fernández documents that for half a millennium or more, Imam Malik (d. 795 AD) through his pupil Yaḥya bin Yaḥya Ibn Kathir al-Laythi (d. 848 AD) ruled al-Andalus with a heavy, dead hand. Although Fernández doesn't get into this (it doesn't matter much), Laythi was indeed a faithful transmitter of Malik's muwatta, as can be seen by comparison with Abu Muṣʿab's recension [UPDATE 7/19/21: er... upon seeing that comparison . . .]. Malik himself was an adherent of the Madina fiqh, which he believed superior over other schools' fiqh; Laythi and his successors argued for that madhhab against the (later) pure ḥadith-based legal schools, purportedly "Muhammadan". When Malikites came to Sicily, they brought the Warsh Qurân with them; this is now dominant in the Maghreb. It was said that the Maghreb had Hamza's qirâ', from al-Kufa, before that.

That Malikism isn't ḥadith-fundamentalist does not mean that the Spanish Malikites were tolerant. Fernández, 128 notes how amir-turned-caliph ʿAbd al-Raḥman III (r. 912–61 AD) mandated that only Maliki judges rule on Islamic law. In fact, when the amir executed his son, it may have been because his son was deviating too far into "Shafi'ism" - that is, into the ahl al-ḥadith. Mostly Shafi'ites got exiled (p. 99).

There were Muslims in Spain who weren't Maliki. The whole of Valencia was "qabayli berber" and, as fremen do, thumbed its nose at the Umayyad emirs until the Caliphate restoration. Ibn Hazm is a later case in point... but he got exiled (p. 97). [UPDATE 1/8/2022: ʿAbd al-Raḥmān b. Ismāīl ibn Badr too.] I get the impression that Ibn 'Abd Rabbih (d. 940 AD) wasn't interested in sectarian debates; given that he (famously) collected Syrian and Iraqi "merchandise" (not Madinese nor even Spanish) which he "sold back to them"; one suspects this one, at least, could appreciate the Hamza Qurân. The Baqi recension of Ibn Khayyat's chronograph also survives among the Andalusis. The Spanish Umayyads, I take it, tolerated non-Maliki literature as long as it was at least not anti-Umayyad, and if the Malikite wasn't sitting at the bench.

Fernández glides over the rise of the Maliki madhhab; it wasn't born in Spain nor even in Africa, and it wasn't brought there by the first conquerors. Al-Hakam I and especially 'Abd al-Rahman II (r. 822-52 AD) seem to have taken it from Laythi. As to why: pending more investigation (and evidence) I suspect the natural tendency of Sunni amirates to cede more power to God... which meant, to God's jurists. Also the 'Abbasids were succumbing to the ahl al-ḥadith over the 800s; Malikites, especially if given inquisitorial power, could arrest that, at least.