1241 – Ibn ʿUmar (may Allah be pleased with them both) said: The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) declared, “Walāʾ is a tie like the tie of kinship; it may neither be sold nor transferred as a gift.” Narrated by al-Shāfiʿī, and graded authentic by Ibn Ḥibbān and al-Ḥākim (1). A version of the report is found in the two Ṣaḥīḥs with wording different from this (2).
Hadith grading:
This ḥadith is ṣaḥīḥ. Al-Shāfiʿī recorded it, and through his transmission it was also related by al-Ḥākim and al-Bayhaqī. Al-Albānī said: Al-Naysābūrī remarked that al-Ḥasan narrated it as a mursal report. I say: the chain of this mursal version is sound, and it strengthens the connected narration, for the route of the connected report is other than the route of the mursal. Hence the ḥadith is authentic via al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, and Allah knows best.
Key terms:
• walāʾ: here, walāʾ al-ʿitāqah—the agnatic bond created by an emancipator’s benefaction in freeing his slave.
• “a tie like the tie of kinship”: luḥmah means a relationship or attachment, comparable to that produced by lineage.
Lessons drawn from the ḥadith:
- Slavery is a legal disability that befalls a person, its cause being disbelief; thus slavery entails a person’s loss of