This is the preserved report. In some narrations, he is said to have been a free man, but these contain some difficulty. On that basis, she has the option.

Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah—may Allah have mercy on him—held that she has the option unconditionally when she is emancipated. He regarded emancipation itself as the factor giving rise to this option, rather than her becoming equal in status to her husband. This is because, while she was a slave woman, she had no control over her own affairs: she was subject to her master, who was the one who arranged her marriage. But once she is emancipated, she becomes free and acquires all the authority that her master previously had over her. This is the stronger view.

It may be said: if her master forced her into the marriage, we give her the choice; but if she was not forced and accepted him, then she has no option, because she herself consented to him. This is a composite view drawn from the two positions, and it is an approach that Shaykh al-Islam Ibn Taymiyyah—may Allah have mercy on him—sometimes adopted. For example, he held that witr is obligatory for one who observes the night prayer. It is well known that some scholars say that witr is obligatory, while others say that it is not obligatory. When he chose this view, he said: “It is part of the view of those who hold it to be obligatory without qualification.”

Thus, if we were to adopt this distinction—namely, that if she married of her own desire and consent, she has no option, but otherwise she does have the option, because in reality she was married off without control over her own affairs and has now become free—then we would have followed the approach of Shaykh al-Islam—may Allah have mercy on him.