Salaamu Alaikum i am quite puzzled by these quotes what do you make of them? What he means by that is, once you have got this point, you must take from Malik! And there is no other point of departure for the Islamic phenomenon! And Abu Hanifa, as we will see, does not have what he had. You will see that Imam Shafi', the excellent and distinguished scholar, had knowledge of usul, of the laws, and did not know the hadith. Ibn Hanbal, a great and honoured man, had great knowledge of hadith but he did not have the usul. Abu Hanifa did not have the usul and did not have the hadith, he had Qur'an but he did not have these other two. And Malik had Qur'an, had the usul and had the hadith! Now we come to the heart of this matter - I am saying that what is called madhhab and madhhabism, effectively, is unacceptable, and that if you stop with ash-Shafi'i, or stop with Abu Hanifa, or any madhhab of any other name or claim, then you have chosen it as a religion - because it is not the same as that based on the 'amal of Madina. And even if it claims Malik's name and does not connect to 'amal of Madina by conviction, by subscription, and by application, it is not this primal teaching. (Taken from Root Islamic Education by Shaykh Abdal Qadir as Sufi/Murabitun)