The Fourth Question: Must the expiation reach a specific number of needy persons?
Mālik and al-Shāfiʿī held that the duty is not discharged unless one feeds ten distinct paupers. Abū Ḥanīfah, by contrast, deemed it sufficient to feed a single pauper on ten separate days.
Their disagreement turns on the nature of the right involved. Is the expiation a right owed to the very number that is named, or a right owed by the expiator that has merely been calculated by reference to that number? If it is a right that belongs to the number itself—like a bequest—then the number must be observed. But if it is simply a duty upon the expiator that happens to be quantified by that number, then feeding one pauper the full amount on behalf of all ten suffices. The question is genuinely open to both readings.
The Fifth Question: Must the recipients be both Muslim and free?
Mālik and al-Shāfiʿī required the paupers to be Muslims and free persons, whereas Abū Ḥanīfah imposed neither condition.
The root of the dispute is whether entitlement to charity rests solely on poverty or also on Islam, for revelation makes clear that a person is rewarded for giving charity even to a poor non-Muslim. Whoever likened this expiation to the obligatory zakāh—reserved for Muslims—required Islam in the recipients. Whoever likened it to voluntary almsgiving allowed the beneficiaries to be non-Muslims as well.
Their divergence concerning slaves depends on whether poverty can be conceived of in their case. Slaves are usually maintained by their masters, who are in fact legally obliged to provide for them. Those who focused only on the possibility of poverty said that slaves and free persons are the same, for a master might well starve his slave. Those who focused on the master’s legal duty replied that the master must maintain the slave and can be compelled to do so; if he lacks the means, the slave is sold to secure that maintenance. Hence slaves, in their view, have no need of support through expiations or similar forms of charity.
The Sixth Question: Must the slave to be freed be free of defects?
The jurists of the major cities stipulated that the slave must be sound—free of defects that lower his market value. The Ẓāhirīs did not regard this as a condition.
The reason for the difference is whether one should take the least that the term “slave” can denote, or insist on the most complete sense of the term.
The Seventh Question: Must the slave also be a believer?
Mālik and al-Shāfiʿī required the emancipated slave to be a believer, whereas Abū Ḥanīfah allowed him to be non-believing.
The dispute arises over whether an unqualified term should be read in light of a qualified usage when the rulings are the same though the underlying causes differ—as with the various expiations compared to the expiation for ẓihār. Those who said that the unqualified is to be restricted by the qualified stipulated faith here as well, drawing on the requirement in the ẓihār expiation: “then freeing a believing slave” (Q 4:92). Those who rejected such restriction maintained that the wording should stand on its unrestricted meaning.