When Imam Malik was still young aiming to pursue his studies, his mother who was the one to encourage him greatly in this pursuit said to him: “Go to Rabeeah, and learn from his scholarship and from his manners.” Malik acted on his mother’s advice and Rabeeah was one of two scholars to have the greatest influence on Malik in his scholarship.
Rabeeah ibn Abu Abd Al-Rahman Farrookh was a great scholar. Perhaps nothing describes his achievement better than what Al-Laith ibn Sa’ad, Malik’s friend and contemporary, says in a famous letter he sent to Malik concerning some issues on which the two scholars differed: “By the grace of God, Rabeeah was a man of great goodness, sound logic, powerful style, recognized virtue, and good understanding of Islam, and sincere affection to his brothers generally and to both of us in particular. May God bestow His mercy on him and grant him forgiveness, and may He reward him richly for his deeds.”
In the generation that followed the Prophet’s companions, i.e. the generation of tabieen, seven scholars were recognized to have the highest achievement. Hence, they are often referred to as ‘the seven scholars’. These were Saeed ibn Al-Musayyib, Urwah ibn Al-Zubayr, Al-Qassim ibn Muhammad, Kharijah ibn Zaid ibn Thabit, Abu Bakr ibn Abd Al-Rahman ibn Al-Harith, Sulayman ibn Yassar, and Ubaydullah ibn Ubaydullah ibn Utbah. Some of these excelled in Hadith, while others excelled in Fiqh based on scholarly effort and discretion.
Rabeeah was a scholar who gathered much of the scholarship of all seven scholars. Hence, he was able to add the Fiqh based on Hadith to that which relies on discretion and scholarly effort. He studied the rulings issued by the Prophet’s companions in detail, looking at the way they deduced their rulings, so as to be able to do the same following their methods. This enabled him to give views on questions which were not looked at by earlier scholars. Hence, he earned his title, Al-Ra’y, which means, ‘opinion, viewpoint, discretion, etc.’ He may disagree with all seven scholars on certain points, making sure to have his views based on the rich scholarly material he had at his fingertip.
Rabeeah considered the true Fiqh to be in Madinah. Like many of his contemporaries in Madinah, he did not think highly of the Iraqi scholarship. These two areas were the two main centers of Islamic scholarship at the time. This is understandable because in Madinah lived a large number of the Prophet’s companions and the majority of their successors. It was the city where the first Muslim community was established under the practical guidance of the Prophet.
Rabeeah’s views are clearly evident in Malik’s scholarship. It was from Rabeeah that Malik learnt to uphold the practice of the people of Madinah when they agree on any matter. He considers this practice to be of greater value than a Hadith reported by a chain of single reporters. Rabeeah used to say to Malik: “To have one thousand following one thousand (i.e. the common practice of the people of Madinah) is far better than a report given by one person through another. The latter takes away the Sunnah from your hands.”
But this position of Rabeeah as an authority in scholarship giving preference to scholarly discretion is taken against him by later scholars.
To be fair to him we say that Rabeeah’s scholarship was based on thorough knowledge of the Qur’an, Hadith and the methods followed by the Prophet’s companions in their rulings on questions. He was keen to learn these, particularly the rulings of Umar ibn Al-Khattab. What distinguishes Umar was not merely his profound knowledge acquired through close companionship with the Prophet, but also the need to rule on a great variety of questions for 10 years when he was the Caliph and ruler of the Muslim state. This was a time when the Muslim state expanded a great deal. So, Rabeeah’s scholarship combines both learning from earlier scholars and a great personal insight in Islamic jurisprudence and teachings. The two trends are known as riwayah, which means following the beaten track, and dirayah, which means the know-how. Rabeeah’s scholarship tended to be more in the know-how trend, but does not neglect the other one.
However, he could not escape criticism by those who felt that he moved too far from the Hadith and the path outlined by earlier scholars. Indeed, some of his main students disagreed with him on this basis. Most distinguished among these were Malik, Al-Laith ibn Sa’ad and Abduaziz ibn Abdullah. Their criticism is based on the fact that often Rabeeah disagreed with earlier scholars in his rulings. They preferred to base their rulings on the authentic reports they received from the Prophet, his companions and their successors. In fact these scholars did not object to the principle of a scholar of the caliber of Rabeeah having an independent point of view on a particular question.
Indeed they respected him highly for that. But when they realized that the Prophet’s companions or their immediate successors had voiced certain points of view on a particular question, they could not accept that Rabeeah should have an independent opinion, different from theirs. What happened then was that Malik stopped attending Rabeeah’s circle. However, Malik himself became the major scholar of independent views based on scholarly effort and discretion in Madinah after Rabeeah had passed away.
Rabeeah remained in Madinah for most of his life. However, Abu Al-Abbas, the first Abbasi Caliph, wrote to him inviting him to go over to Iraq, as he intended to appoint him chief justice. But he did not live there long. He passed away at Al-Anbar, the first capital of the Abbasid era, in 136. May God bless him and grant him His grace.