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There are three opinions concerning a mukātab (a slave under a manumission contract), a mudabbar (a slave whose emancipation is stipulated to take effect upon his master’s death), and a slave whose emancipation is stipulated for a fixed future date, when they father children by their female slaves: do these women acquire the status of slave women who have borne their masters’ children if the men attain freedom?

The first opinion is that they do not acquire that status on this account.

The second is that they do.

The third distinguishes between the mukātab, the mudabbar, and the slave to be freed at a fixed future date. The underlying disagreement concerns whether a female slave acquires a protected status by bearing a child to her master while he is in one of these three conditions. There are two opinions:

The first is that she thereby acquires a protected status.

The second is that she does not.

If we hold that she thereby acquires a protected status, then, if he attains freedom, she acquires the status of a slave woman who has borne her master’s child through any pregnancy conceived after the manumission contract, the stipulation of emancipation upon his master’s death, or the stipulation of emancipation at a fixed future date—even if she gives birth before he becomes free. On this there is no disagreement. As for a child conceived before such an arrangement and born afterward—for example, if she was his wife and conceived by him before his manumission contract or either stipulation of emancipation, and he then purchased her from her master while she was pregnant, after that contract or stipulation—she does not acquire that status through this child, except according to the opinion that a free man’s wife acquires that status if he purchases her while she is pregnant by him. The disagreement on this has already been mentioned.

If, however, we hold that she does not thereby acquire a protected status, then, with respect to any child she conceives or bears to her master while he is in this condition, she is like the female slave of an enslaved man who bears or conceives a child by him: she does not thereby acquire the status of a slave woman who has borne her master’s child. The exception is if he attains freedom by completing the payments under his manumission contract, by the expiry of the stipulated term, or, in the case of emancipation upon his master’s death, by his master’s death with his value covered by one-third of the estate, while his female slave is pregnant by him, so that he acquires ownership of the unborn child. This is according to Ibn al-Qāsim’s position and his report from Mālik, contrary to Ashhab’s position and Ibn Abd al-Hakam’s report from Mālik. And Allah grants success.