As for blindness or the severing of both hands or both feet, the jurists unanimously agree that such defects prevent the emancipation from fulfilling the expiation. They disagreed, however, about lesser defects. One is the loss of a single hand: Abū Ḥanīfah deemed it acceptable, whereas Mālik and al-Shāfiʿī did not. Concerning a one-eyed slave, Mālik held that his emancipation does not suffice, while ʿAbd al-Malik held that it does. As for a slave whose ears have been cut off, Mālik said his emancipation is invalid, but al-Shāfiʿī’s disciples said it suffices. With respect to a deaf slave, Mālik’s school is divided—some say it suffices, others say it does not. A mute slave does not suffice according to Mālik, and al-Shāfiʿī has two opinions on the matter. An insane person does not suffice. Regarding a eunuch, Ibn al-Qāsim said, “The eunuch does not appeal to me,” others said it does not suffice, whereas al-Shāfiʿī said it does.

The emancipation of a minor is valid according to the overwhelming majority of jurists in the provinces, though some early authorities are reported to have disallowed it. Slight lameness suffices in the Mālikī school, but pronounced lameness does not.

The root of their disagreement is their diverging assessments of the degree of defect that undermines a devotional act; the only textual precedent they have is the ruling on sacrificial animals.

Likewise, in the Mālikī school the emancipation does not suffice if the slave is jointly owned or already has a share of freedom—such as a mukātab (slave under a manumission contract) or one declared free upon the owner’s death (tadbīr)—because of the verse, “then free a slave” (al-Mujādilah 3). Liberation means initiating manumission; when a contract of freedom like kitābah is already in place, freeing him merely executes an existing commitment, not a fresh act of emancipation. The same applies to joint ownership, for part of a person is not a “slave.”

Abū Ḥanīfah said that if a mukātab has paid any portion of his contract price, freeing him does not suffice; if he has paid nothing, it does. They also differed over the emancipation of a tadbīr slave. Mālik said it is invalid, likening it to kitābah because it is a binding contract that cannot be revoked; al-Shāfiʿī said it suffices. Mālik further ruled that freeing one’s umm walad or a slave whose manumission is deferred to a fixed date does not suffice. The umm walad is excluded because her status is more binding than kitābah or tadbīr, both of which can lapse: kitābah if the slave cannot pay the instalments, tadbīr if the one-third bequest is insufficient. A deferred emancipation is likewise irrevocable and so invalid for expiation.

Mālik and al-Shāfiʿī disagreed with Abū Ḥanīfah over whether freeing a relative who would automatically become free through kinship fulfills the requirement. Mālik and al-Shāfiʿī said it does not; Abū Ḥanīfah said that if the emancipator intends it as the expiation for ẓihār, it suffices. He likened it to freeing a slave whose purchase is not obligatory: in both cases the man is not required to buy the slave and pay his price, and if he intends expiation it is valid. The Mālikīs and Shāfiʿīs argue that when a man buys a slave who becomes free by kinship, the emancipation occurs without any intention to free him, so it does not suffice. Abū Ḥanīfah treated the intention behind the purchase as equivalent to an intention to emancipate, whereas they insist that one must intend the act of emancipation itself. Thus both sides call him an emancipator by choice, yet in one view he emancipates by the first choice, while in the other he emancipates as an unavoidable consequence of that choice—so, with respect to the first intention, he is a purchaser and, with respect to the second, an emancipator, and vice-versa for the other opinion.

Mālik and al-Shāfiʿī also differed over a man who frees the equivalent of two half-slaves. Mālik said this is invalid, whereas al-Shāfiʿī allowed it, arguing that two halves amount to one whole slave; Mālik adhered to the literal wording. These, then, are the points on which they disagreed.