Near the beginning of the work that would define his career, the nineteenth century Mauritanian scholar, al-N?bighah al-Ghal?w? (d. 1828), wrote, “This is a survey of the unreliable material in texts.” The admission was odd. A precocious legal scholar and grammarian, al-Ghal?w? began writing the treatise, named B? Tlay?iyah in local dialect, while still in his late twenties. A split with his teacher led to a career teaching and issuing legal opinions until his untimely death. Over the next decade he frequently condemned the declining standards of education, most notably in a three hundred verse poem dedicated to untrustworthy texts. Though its introduction failed to specify which genre of scholarship he had in mind, his target was clear. Islamic law, according to al-Ghal?w?, was in desperate need of repair. Jurisprudence had grown stale from centuries of imitation. He lamented that works riddled with mistakes thrived while meticulously researched alternatives were all but forgotten. Impatient students rarely ventured beyond the most popular texts, rushing from introductory manuals to complex treatises in months. Few grasped what they read. Less still seemed to be aware that other works of law existed at all. Al-Ghal?w?’s text is exceptional. Though searing critique of the legal establishment was hardly uncommon, few resembled al-Ghal?w?’s work. He was himself a devoted scholar-jurist of the Maliki school. He had little interest in reformism that marginalized classical legal scholarship. Nor was he concerned with the debates of internal madhhab polemics. He criticized the texts of Mauritanians and Egyptians with equal regard, censuring the views of authorities and novices alike. Ostensibly a super-commentary of the fourteenth century Maliki treatise, the Mukhta?ar Khal?l, al-Ghal?w?’s writing appears closer to a work of book history than jurisprudence. It was a collection of Islamic legal rules considerably more concerned with the books used to justify them. My paper contemplates the Maliki legal canon through the eyes of al-Ghal?w?. It asks why, and how such a text was produced in nineteenth century Mauritania? Through local historiographies and a close reading of his work, my paper joins the study of Islamic law with history of the book. It argues that Ghal?w?’s own assessment of his school’s canonical texts reveals a considerably more nuanced picture of African Muslims and later Islamic law than is often supposed.