Chapter: The Rulings Concerning the Umm al-Walad

Introduction

• Ahkām (plural of ḥukm) in the Arabic language denote judgment and wisdom. Technically, an ḥukm is the divine address that yields a legal implication.

• The rulings specific to an umm al-walad consist of the permissibility of benefiting from her services, marrying her off, the prohibition of selling her, and the like.

• The word umm (mother) is pluralized as ummāt when one looks only at the word itself, and as ummahāt when the term is returned to its original morphological form (ummaha), for the plural restores a word to its root.

Definition of Umm al-Walad

An umm al-walad is a female slave who has borne for her master a child in whose body any discernible human form appears—even if the form is faint and even if the infant is stillborn—provided that the person for whom she bore the child owned her, even if he owned only a share of her.

ʿUmar (may Allah be pleased with him) said: “When a slave woman gives birth to a child from her master, she is emancipated, even if it was a miscarried fetus.”

Al-Muwaffaq said: “I know of no disagreement concerning the establishment of the ruling of istiylād (concubinage after bearing a child).”

The Minister (Ibn Hubayrah) said: “The jurists are unanimously agreed that ummahāt al-awlād (concubines who have borne children) are not to be sold, and that they become free at the expense of their master’s estate when he dies.”

Any child she bears from someone other than her master after she has attained the status of umm al-walad follows her ruling and is emancipated upon her master’s death. Whatever forms of disposal are lawful in her regard are likewise lawful with respect to that child, and whatever is impermissible concerning her remains impermissible for him.

As for any child she bore before her master made her an umm al-walad, that child does not follow her and does not share her ruling.