“Imam Malik never took a day off. He would study even on the days of ‘Id. Indeed, he would wait for the ‘Id because he knew that no one else would be competing with him on that day for the attentions of one of Madinah’s scholars, particularly Ibn Shihāb al-Zuhri. Malik would later recall one of these ‘Id day lessons as follows:
‘I attended the ‘Id prayer. Afterwards, I said to myself: ‘Ibn Shihāb will be free today.’ So I immidately went from the prayer area to sit by his door.
I heard him ask his servant girl: ‘Look to see who is at the door.’
She told him: ‘It’s that white-skinned associate of yours, Malik.'
He said: ‘Let him in.” So I came inside, and then he said to me: ‘It doesn’t seem like you even had a chance to go to your house before coming here.’ I told him that he was right. He asked: ‘Have you eaten?’
I said: ‘No.’
He said: ‘Then eat something.’
I said: ‘This is not what i need.’
‘Then what is it that you want?’ He asked.
‘I want you to relate knowledge to me.’
‘Come here then.’
I took out my copy boards and he related forty hadith to me. I asked him to relate more, but he said: ‘Forty is enough for you to relate, for you to commit to memory.’
I said: ‘Indeed I have already related them [to memory].
He then took the copy boards from my hand and said: ‘Relate them, then.’
I related them all to him. Then he returned the copy boards to me and said: ‘Come with me, for you are one of the vessels of knowledge.’ “
—
Salman Al-Oadah, In the Company of the Imams, p.82