Did Imam Malik issue a ruling without knowledge or evidence from the Book or the Sunnah, and forbid greeting while the Imam is delivering the sermon, and permit the worshipper to pray missed prayers without an excuse, while the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, commanded greeting and said: "Islam nullifies what came before it"? So what is the ruling on Imam Malik and those who follow him in Islamic law?

Imam Malik is one of the four Imams whose madhhabs (schools of thought) are followed. He was a mujtahid (independent jurist) who did not intentionally contravene any Sharia text. Rather, a hadith might have been considered unauthentic by him, or abrogated, or there might have been a stronger opposing evidence. An ordinary person must follow the people of knowledge, as Allah states: "So ask the people of the message if you do not know." (Quran 16:43). They are not obliged to adhere to a specific madhhab, whereas one capable of ijtihad (deriving legal rulings) acts upon their own ijtihad. Tahiyat al-masjid (greeting the mosque prayer) during the Friday sermon is a Sunnah. The Malikis cited evidence that they deemed stronger than the hadith of Jabir. Scholars differed on making up missed prayers without a valid excuse; the majority held that it is obligatory to make them up, while others maintained it is not obligatory. There is a difference of opinion regarding the places of prostration of recitation (Sujud al-Tilawah) in the Mufassal (the last seventh of the Quran). The majority held there are three prostrations, while the well-known view in the Maliki madhhab is not to prostrate in any part of the Mufassal. These are matters of ijtihad, and one must find excuses for the Imams.