Book of Slave Women Who Have Borne Children to Their Masters

Section
On a Slave Woman’s Entitlement to Freedom upon Her Master’s Death by Virtue of Bearing His Child

Allah, Mighty and Majestic, says:

“And those who guard their chastity” [al-Mu’minūn: 5], “except with their wives or those whom their right hands possess, for then they are free from blame” [al-Mu’minūn: 6].

Thus, the Most High has permitted intercourse with female slaves whom one owns. Intercourse may lead to conception. Allah Most High says:

“When he lay with her, she conceived a light burden and carried it with ease” [al-A‘rāf: 189].

The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, purchased Māriya the Copt, and she bore him his son Abraham. According to a report from him, he said when she gave birth: “Her child has freed her.” He meant that, through her child, she had acquired a protected status, so that she would never return to slavery. She may neither be sold nor given away, because her entitlement to freedom has been established; his only remaining entitlement in her is sexual enjoyment throughout his lifetime. This is evidenced by the report transmitted from him through Ibn ‘Abbās: “Any woman who bears her master a child is free after his death.”

Since there is consensus that a slave woman who has borne her master a child does not become free before his death, and that she remains subject to the rulings governing a female slave in every respect