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Malekites

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the second of the four orthodox Mohammedan sects. The founder of the Malekites was Malek Ibn-Ansa, born at Medina about the year of the Hegira 95. He was remarkable for strenuously insisting on the literal acceptation of the prohibitory precepts. Tradition will have it that when visited in his last illness by a friend, who found him in tears, and asked him the cause of his affliction, he replied, "Who has more reason to weep than I? Would God that for every question decided by me according to my own opinion I had received so many stripes, then would my account be easier. Would to God I had never given any decision of my own." The Malekites are chiefly found in Barbary and other parts of Africa. — Sale's Koran, Prel. Disc. § 8; Taylor, Hist. of Mohammedanism, p. 288; Broughton, Biblioth. Hist. Sac. vol. 2, S. V. (See MOHAMMEDANISM).