Nevertheless, the discussion has strayed; so let us return to our point and say: there is no disagreement among them that one-eyedness, blindness, or the severing of a hand or a foot are actionable defects. The same applies to any illness, whether confined to a particular limb or spread throughout the body. In the Mālikī school, the presence of grey hair is a defect in a high-grade female slave, though some hold that a small amount of it is excused. Persistent non-menstrual bleeding (istiḥāḍah) is likewise a defect in both first-class and ordinary female slaves, and—as is the prevalent view in the school—the cessation of menstruation is also a defect. Alopecia is a defect, and every disease affecting the senses or the limbs is, by unanimous agreement, a defect.

In sum, the basic rule of the school is that anything which lowers the price is a defect. Bed-wetting is therefore a defect; this is also the position of al-Shāfiʿī. Abū Ḥanīfah, however, allows a female slave to be returned for it, but not a male slave. Effeminacy in a male and masculinity in a female are likewise defects. All of this represents the doctrine of the school, except where a contrary opinion has been noted.

Second Consideration

For a defect to entail the relevant legal ruling it must, by consensus, have existed before the sale was concluded, or have arisen during the warranty period according to those who recognise such a period. We must therefore set out the juristic dispute over the warranty (ʿuhdah).

Mālik alone—following the scholars of Madinah, the Seven Jurists and others—affirmed the doctrine of warranty, in contrast to the jurists of the other regions. By warranty they mean that any defect which appears while the slave is in the buyer’s possession is attributed to the seller. Those who uphold it distinguish two warranties:

1. The three-day warranty, which covers every defect that arises within three days of the buyer’s taking possession.

2. The one-year warranty, which concerns three specific ailments: leprosy, vitiligo, and insanity. If any of these three afflict the slave within a year, liability rests with the seller; any other defect remains, in principle, the buyer’s responsibility.

Among the Mālikīs, the three-day warranty is generally treated like the period of option (khiyār) and the uterine-clearance period (istibrāʾ); during it, maintenance and liability fall upon the seller. As for the one-year warranty, maintenance and liability fall upon the buyer, except in the case of those three diseases. According to Mālik, this warranty applies to slaves and likewise to every kind of sale in which haggling and bargaining are the object and the contract concerns a specific item rather than a debt. On this there is no disagreement within the school, though other applications are debated.

In the predominant view, the one-year warranty begins only after the three-day warranty has elapsed. If the period of muwāḍaʿah (a manumission agreement by instalments) is longer than three days, it overlaps the three-day warranty, whereas the one-year warranty does not overlap the uterine-clearance period. This is the apparent position in the school, though it is not free of disagreement.

The Seven Jurists stated: no warranty period may overlap another; first comes the uterine-clearance period, then the three-day warranty, and finally the one-year warranty.