Lexical notes:
– dhu raḥim (blood-relative): Literally, “the place where the child is formed”—the womb—and by extension any kinship tie. Here it refers to every person whose lineal relationship to you renders marriage between you unlawful.
– maḥram: Pronounced with an open mīm, a silent ḥāʾ, and a lightly-opened rāʾ; it is also read muḥarram (passive participle of “to forbid”). A maḥram is a relative whom one may never lawfully marry.
– fa-huwa ḥurr (“then he is free”): The apodosis of the conditional clause; i.e., such a close maḥram relative becomes free. The nominal sentence indicates permanence and certainty.

Points derived from the ḥadith:

1. The wise and merciful Lawgiver has established several causes that bring about manumission. Among them is that when a person comes to own a close relative, that relative is automatically set free—details to follow, Allah willing.
2. Ibn Rushd said: The majority of scholars maintain that kinship triggers manumission; the four Imams agree on this ruling, though they differ over its precise limits and particulars.
3. Abū Ḥanīfah: The rule applies to fathers, mothers and all their ascendants; to children and all their descendants; to brothers, sisters, and their children; and to paternal and maternal uncles and aunts—but not to the children of those uncles and aunts.
4. Mālik restricted it to ascendants, descendants, and brothers and sisters only.
5. Al-Shāfiʿī confined it to fathers, citing the explicit wording of the ḥadith of Abū Hurayrah, and added children by analogy, because in his view the ḥadith of Samurah is not established.
6. Aḥmad’s position is that anyone who acquires ownership of a relative who is permanently maḥram to him—meaning that if one were male and the other female, marriage would be forbidden by blood-relationship—is automatically freed upon ownership. This does not extend to the child of a paternal or maternal cousin, nor to a foster-brother; such individuals are not emancipated by this rule.