Muwattah

http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Hadith/muwatta.html

Siddiqi, Muhammad Zubayr, edited & revised by Murad, Abdal Hakim, Hadith literature: its origin, development, revised edition, 1961, Cambridge, UK: The Islamic Texts Society, revised edition 1993, ISBN 0-946621-38-1 (pbk).

2. What Is The Muwatta'?
The Muwatta', a title given by Malik himself,[2] is one of the earliest formulation ofIslamic law as well as being one the earliest collection of hadiths. Even though Muwatta' contains both legal judgements and hadiths, it is neither a book of fiqh nor a book of hadith.[3] Muhammad Zubayr Siddiqi says:
... the Muwatta' was not intended to serve as collection of hadiths. But it may be said with equal justice that it is not a book of fiqh in the same sense in which later books on fiqhare said to be works on the subject.[4]

The Muwatta' is a compendium of accepted principles, precepts and precedents which has become established as the `amal of Madinah. The name Muwatta' means "the well-trodden [path]", i.e., the path followed and agreed upon by the scholars of Madinah up to and including the time of Malik.[7]
It should be pointed out that some Muslim authorities such as Ibnal-Athir, Ibn `Abd al-Barr and `Abd al-Haqq al-Dihlawi included the Muwatta' in the six canonical collection in the place of the Sunan of Ibn Maja. The majority, however, do not include the Muwatta' among the six canonical collections, because almost all the important traditions contained in it are included in the Sahihs of al-Bukhari and Muslim.[8
3. Reason For Different Transmissions Of TheMuwatta'
The reason for different transmissions ("riwayah") of the Muwatta' can be known if one understands that Malik did not produce the Muwatta' in one sitting. He spent more than 30 years, making serious editorial changes in the Muwatta' as opposed the implicit assumption of a fixed text of the Muwatta' by Dr. Omar and his Christian missionary counterparts:
The Muwatta' in its final form isthe result of lifetime spent by Malik in gathering and disseminating this knowledge of Madinan `amal, of which it is the distillation. The basic text was in place by the year 150 AH, but underwent serious editorial changes over the next thirty years which are reflecting in various transmissions that have survived today.[9]
That Malik used to revise his Muwatta' regularly, year after year, asmentioned in many Islamic sources and especially those dealing with the Maliki school of jurisprudence. Qadi `Iyad in his Tartib al-Madarik says:

`Atiq al-Zubayri said: "Malik included some ten thousand hadiths in his Muwatta'. Each year he would revise it and drop some narrations from therein so much so that we are left with this amount of it. Had he lived longer he would have dropped the rest ofit."[10]
He also adds:

Sulayman Ibn Bilal said: "When Malik wrote the Muwatta', it included four thousand hadiths - or did he say more than four thousand hadiths. When he died, it contained one thousand and some hadiths, as he screened it year after year according to what he believes fulfills the interest of the Muslims and that of the religion."[11]
Ibn `Abd al-Barr in his Al-Tamhid says:... On authority of `Umar b. `Abd al-Wahid, the companion of Al-Awza`i, that he said: We displayed the Muwatta' before Malik in forty days. He [Malik] said: "A book whom I authored in forty years, you took in forty days. Little indeed is what you consider in it!"[12]
The fact that the Muwatta' has a number of transmissions is hardly a revelation. As early as 350 AH, the great hadith scholaral-Daraqutni compiled a book giving the hadiths in different transmissions of the Muwatta'. His work was published and was entitled Ahadith al-Muwatta' wa-Ittifaq al-Ruwat `an Malik wa-Ikhtilafuhum fi ha Ziyadatan wa-Naqsan[13] ("The Ahadith of al-Muwatta': The Agreement of Narrators from Malik and Their Differences in terms of Addition and Omission").
Given the fact that Malik revised the...