The Book of Manumission

The jurists place manumission immediately after financial transactions because it has an aspect of property: manumission is the freeing of a person from slavery, and a slave is property. They therefore included it among financial transactions, before moving on to personal-status matters.

Some scholars place the chapter on manumission at the end of their books of jurisprudence, after the chapter on acknowledgements; they place acknowledgements within the chapter on settlement, or elsewhere. Each arrangement has its rationale. Those who make the Book of Acknowledgements the final section of jurisprudence do so as an auspicious indication of the declaration of the testimony of faith at death, which is a person’s final deed. Those who place manumission at the end of jurisprudence do so as an auspicious indication that Allah may free a person from the Fire. Later jurists, however, gave consideration to the first meaning—that manumission has an aspect of property—and thus included it among financial transactions.

Linguistically, ʿitq means antiquity, as in Allah’s saying: “Then their place of sacrifice is at the Ancient House.” [al-Hajj 22:33]

In legal terminology, it means freeing a person from slavery.

That is, if someone owns a slave and manumits him, he has set him free from slavery.

Manumission occurs through a number of means, including:

First: an explicit verbal formula, which is of two types: explicit wording and indirect wording. Explicit wording is that which admits of no meaning other than the intended one, such as: “I have manumitted you,” “I have freed you,” “You are manumitted,” or “You are free,” and the like.

Indirect wording is any expression that may convey the intended meaning or another meaning, such as saying: “I have no authority over you,” “You are free to go wherever you wish,” and the like.