more than the unrecovered balance of his original purchase price; he may therefore recover only the least of three amounts.” The correct view, however, is that his statements differ. Thus, he has three positions on this question. The first is that, if any amount is recovered from him on account of the defect, or he reduces the price on account of it, he may recover from his seller the allowance for the defect based on his own purchase price, however much it amounts to. This is Īsā’s transmission from Ibn al-Qāsim. The second is that he may recover the lesser of the allowance for the defect based on his own purchase price and the amount recovered from him. This is one of Ibn al-Qāsim’s two statements in Ibn al-Mawwāz’s book. The third is that he may recover the least of three amounts: the allowance for the defect based on his own purchase price, the amount recovered from him, or the unrecovered balance of his original purchase price. This is Ibn al-Mawwāz’s preferred view and one of Ibn al-Qāsim’s two statements in his book. Ashhab said that, if he sells it, even if no reduction is made on account of the defect, he may recover the lesser of the allowance for the defect based on his purchase price and the unrecovered balance of his original purchase price. Ibn Abd al-Hakam said that he may recover the full allowance for the defect from the seller, whether he sold it to a third party for the same price, less, or more.
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As for the second case—where it has passed out of his possession without compensation—this must have occurred either through his own voluntary action or through circumstances beyond his control. If it occurred through circumstances beyond his control, as when a slave dies, he accidentally kills him, or the slave is forcibly taken from him, or something similar occurs, there is no disagreement that he may recover the allowance for the defect. If, however, it occurred through his own voluntary action, as when he deliberately kills a slave, gives him away, gives him in charity, emancipates him, enters into a contractual manumission agreement with him, or does something similar, Ziyād transmitted from Mālik—may Allah Most High have mercy on him—that this precludes return and that he has no right to recover an allowance for the defect. Mālik’s well-known position—may Allah Most High have mercy on him—which his companions follow, is that this precludes return but that he may recover the allowance for the defect.
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As for the fifth situation, where he enters into a contract concerning it that prevents him from returning it, the contract either entails its subsequent return to his ownership or does not. If it does not entail its return to his ownership—as in contractual manumission, fathering a child by a slave woman, manumission at a specified future date, or manumission upon the owner’s death—then this constitutes