The Book of Expiations (Kitāb al-Kaffāra)

For any expiation the intention is required, but one need not name the particular expiation at the moment of performance.

The first option for the expiation of ẓihār is to manumit a believing slave who is free of any defect that hinders normal work or earning a livelihood. Hence it is acceptable to free a minor, a bald person, a lame person who can still keep up with a pedestrian caravan, a one-eyed person, a deaf person, one whose nose is flattened, or one who is missing his nose, ears, or toes. It does not suffice to free a cripple, someone missing a leg, or one who has lost both the little finger and the ring finger of a hand, or two phalanges of any other fingers.

I add: the same applies to a single phalanx of the thumb. Allah knows best.

Nor is it valid to emancipate an elderly slave who is physically incapable, a person insane for most of the time, or one with an incurable illness; if the latter later recovers, the sound opinion is that the emancipation is nonetheless valid.

It is not enough to buy a related slave for the purpose of expiation, nor to free one’s umm walad, nor a slave bound by a valid self-purchase contract (mukātaba). It is, however, permissible to free a mudabbar or a slave whose freedom has already been suspended on the fulfilment of a condition. If a man wishes to count that previously suspended emancipation as his expiation, it is not acceptable. He may, though, make the emancipation required for the expiation itself conditional on some future event, and he may distribute two expiations over his two slaves, assigning half of each expiation to each slave.

If an insolvent person frees half shares of two slaves to meet one expiation, the preponderant view is that it suffices provided the remaining halves of those slaves are already free. Manumission carried out in return for compensation does not discharge an expiation. Manumission for payment is treated like divorce for payment: if someone says, “Free your umm walad for one thousand,” and the owner does so, the emancipation is valid and the payment is due. The same ruling, on the sound opinion, applies when he says, “Free your slave for such-and-such,” and the owner complies.

If he says, “Free him on my behalf for such-and-such,” and the owner complies, the slave is freed on behalf of the requester and that requester is liable for the payment. The stronger opinion is that the requester acquires ownership of the slave immediately after the manumission formula, and the slave is then set free from him.

Anyone who possesses a slave—or the price of a slave—in excess of what is needed for the maintenance of himself and his dependants