Al-Muwatta of Imam Malik Ash-Shafi'i said, "After the Book of Allah, there is no book on the face of the earth sounder than the book of Malik." 'Ala' ad-Din Maghlatay al-Hanafi said, "The first person to compile the sahih was Malik." Ibn Hajar said, "The book of Malik is sound by all the criteria that are demanded as proofs in the mursal, munqati' and other types of transmission." As-Suyuti followed Ibn Hajar's judgement and said, "It is absolutely correct to say that the Muwatta' is sound (sahih) without exception." Al-Bukhari and Muslim transmitted most of its hadiths and included them in their Sahih collections. The authors of the rest of the six books, the Imam of the hadith scholars, Ahmad ibn Hanbal, and others did the same. In addition, the Muwatta' contains a record of the practice ('amal) of the people of Madinah of the first generations, a transmission of the ethos that permeated the city, and Imam Malik's painstaking clarification of the Sunna, the hadiths, the practice and legal judgements. Imam Malik ibn anas (93 AH/711 CE - 179 AH/795 CE) Imam Malik's full name is Malik ibn Anas ibn Malik ibn Abi 'Amir al-Asbahi and he was related to Dhu Asbah, a sub-tribe of Himyar. He was instructed in the learning and recitation of the Noble Qur'an by Imam Nafi' ibn 'Abd ar-Rahman ibn Abi Nu'aym, the Imam of the reciters of Madina and one of the 'seven reciters'. Among the huge number of his teachers in hadith and fiqh were Nafi', the mawla of 'Abdullah ibn 'Umar, and Ibn Shihab az-Zuhri. He sat to give fatwa when he was seventeen years old after seventy Imams had testified that he was worthy to give fatwa and teach. His own students included Imam ash-Shafi'i and Imam Muhammad ibn al-Hasan ash-Shaybani the Hanafi mujtahid, as well as a great number of Imams of hadith and fiqh, and thus he is known as Imam al-A'immah 'the Imam of the Imams'. He is recognised to be the subject of the hadith from Abu Hurayra i "The Messenger of Allah @ said, 'There will come a time when the people will beat the livers of their camels in search of knowledge and they will not find an 'alim with more knowledge than the 'alim of Madina.'"