They differed, with respect to slaves, on a number of issues:

1. As we have already mentioned, the first concerns whether the master must pay Zakāt al-Fiṭr for a slave who owns property. The dispute turns on the preliminary question: does a slave possess legal ownership or not?

2. The second relates to the non-Muslim slave: is the master obliged to pay Zakāt al-Fiṭr on his behalf? Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī, and Aḥmad held that no Zakāt is due for a non-Muslim slave, whereas the Kūfan jurists maintained that it is obligatory.

   The cause of their disagreement is the additional wording found in the ḥadīth of Ibn ʿUmar—his phrase, “from the Muslims.” Nāfiʿ’s narration has been challenged, however, on the grounds that Ibn ʿUmar himself, the very narrator of the report, was known to give Zakāt al-Fiṭr for his non-Muslim slaves. A second reason for the difference is whether the Zakāt paid by the master is owed because the slave is a morally responsible person or because he is classified as property. Whoever took the former view required Islam; whoever took the latter did not.

   They argue that the consensus of the scholars supports this second view, for when a slave is emancipated and his master has not paid Zakāt al-Fiṭr for him, the emancipated slave is not required to pay it himself—unlike expiations (kaffārāt).

3. The third issue concerns the mukatab (a slave who has contracted to buy his freedom). Mālik and Abū Thawr said the master pays Zakāt al-Fiṭr for him, whereas al-Shāfiʿī, Abū Ḥanīfah, and Aḥmad held that no Zakāt is due. The divergence arises because the mukatab oscillates between the status of freedom and that of slavery.

4. The fourth concerns slaves held as trade goods. Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī, and Aḥmad maintained that the master must pay Zakāt al-Fiṭr for them, while Abū Ḥanīfah and others said there is no charity due on trading slaves. The root of the disagreement is a contest between analogy and textual generality: the unrestricted term “slave” would require Zakāt for both trading and non-trading slaves, yet Abū Ḥanīfah judged that this generality is limited by analogy, lest two different Zakāts be levied on a single asset.

They also disagreed about slaves owned by other slaves, and the ramifications of this chapter are many.

Chapter Three
From what commodities is Zakāt al-Fiṭr payable?

As for the substances from which it must be given, one group held that it may be paid—at the payer’s choice—from wheat, dates, barley, raisins, or dried curd, while another group maintained that what is obligatory is the staple food of the land, or, if he is unable to give that, the staple food of the payer himself. This latter position is the one ʿAbd al-Wahhāb reports as the school’s view.