are pledged against the entire debt, or are they pledged only for the corresponding portion of the debt—namely, fifty—while the remaining half of the debt is unsecured, with no pledge against it?

The answer is the former, because this is a security contract, not an exchange contract such that we would say that what is destroyed is offset by compensation. A pledge is a security contract, and competing claims over it are competing claims of entitlement. Accordingly, if part of it is destroyed, what remains is pledged for the entire debt. We do not say that half of the debt has collateral and the other half has no collateral merely because part of the pledged property—namely, half of it—has been destroyed.

His statement, “Part of it is not released while part of the debt remains,” is also important: no part of the pledged property is released so long as any part of the debt remains; and if the entire debt remains, this is even more clearly the case.

For example, a man pledges five sheep against five hundred dirhams, then repays three hundred of the five hundred dirhams, while the pledged property consists of five sheep. Do we say that the portion corresponding to the repayment is released from the pledge?

The answer is no. Rather, we say that the pledge remains security for the entire remaining debt. This is why he said, “Part of it is not released while part of the debt remains.” Rather, it remains as it was: pledged against the outstanding debt.

His statement, “An increase in it is permissible, but not an increase in its debt,” means that it is permissible to increase the pledged property, but not to increase the debt secured by it. Increasing the pledged property is permissible because it serves an interest: it provides greater security. As for increasing the debt secured by it, that is not permissible, because he seeks to encumber this pledge with the second debt even though it is already encumbered by the first debt; and that which is already encumbered cannot be further encumbered.