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If the insolvent debtor is a woman, her creditors may not take the immediately payable portion of her dower before consummation or within a few days thereafter. Nor may she use it to repay her debts, except for a small amount. In the Book of Blood Money in al-Mudawwana, this is specified as a dinar or thereabouts. In Ibn al-Mawwāz’s book, Mālik said: one, two or three dinars. As for debts she incurs after consummation, her dower may be taken to repay them. This is the explicit wording of Yahyā’s transmission from Ibn al-Qāsim, though it warrants scrutiny. He gave no clear answer as to whether her creditors may lay claim to the deferred portion of her dower to recover their debts. The more evident view is that they may, and that she is not obliged to use it to provide her bridal trousseau.

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If he claims that a slave woman miscarried a child of his, his claim is not accepted unless supported by the testimony of women, or unless this had become widely known before he made the claim. If she has a living child, however, his statement that the child is his is accepted, because the child’s existence removes suspicion in this matter. This is his position in the Book of Slave Women Who Have Borne Their Masters Children, and there is no disagreement on this.

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As for the third topic—determining who bears the risk of loss for property that the debtor has been barred from disposing of—Ashhab said that the loss falls on the insolvent debtor, whether the property is cash or goods, until he hands it over to the creditors. He also transmitted this from Mālik. Ibn al-Mājishūn said that the loss falls on the creditors once the ruler has sequestered the property, whether it is cash or goods. He too transmitted this from Mālik. Ibn al-Qāsim, likewise transmitting from Mālik, said that if it is cash, the loss falls on the creditors—meaning if their debts are payable in cash—and if it consists of goods, the loss falls on the insolvent debtor,