The proof advanced by those who contend that walāʾ is conferred by the very act of embracing Islam is the ḥadīth of Tamīm al-Dārī:
“I asked the Messenger of Allah—may blessings and peace be upon him—about a polytheist who accepts Islam at the hands of a Muslim. He replied, ‘That Muslim has the greatest claim upon him, both in life and in death.’”
This was likewise the juridical ruling of ʿUmar b. ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz.

The first party, however, relies principally on the verse
“Those with whom your right hands have made a pact” (al-Nisāʾ 4:33),
arguing that it was abrogated by the subsequent verses of inheritance and that the ruling it contains pertained only to the earliest stage of Islam.

There is unanimous agreement that walāʾ may neither be sold nor gifted, because the Prophet—peace and blessings be upon him—explicitly forbade doing so, the sole exception being the walāʾ of a sāʾibah.

Third Issue
The scholars disagreed about the case in which a master says to his slave, “You are sāʾibah.”
• Mālik held that both the walāʾ and the blood-money (ʿaql) pass to the community of Muslims, treating the matter as though the man had emancipated the slave on behalf of all Muslims—unless he intended nothing beyond simple manumission, in which case the walāʾ remains with him.
• Al-Shāfiʿī and Abū Ḥanīfah maintained that under every circumstance the walāʾ belongs to the emancipator; the same was said by Aḥmad, Dāwūd, and Abū Thawr.
• A third group said that the freedman may assign his walāʾ wherever he wishes; if he assigns it to no one, it defaults to the Muslims. This was the view of al-Layth and al-Awzāʿī.

Ibrāhīm and al-Shaʿbī allowed both the sale and the donation of the walāʾ of a sāʾibah. Their evidence is identical to the proofs mentioned in the preceding issue. As for those who permit its sale, I am unaware at present of any cogent argument on their part.

Fourth Issue
The scholars also differed concerning the walāʾ of a Muslim slave whom a Christian emancipates before the slave is sold: to whom does it belong?
• Mālik and his companions said: it belongs to the Muslims, and if the former master later becomes Muslim the walāʾ and inheritance do not revert to him.
• The majority replied: the walāʾ belongs to the master; if he later enters Islam, he is entitled to the slave’s estate.

The majority’s principal argument is that walāʾ is analogous to lineage: when a father embraces Islam after his son, he inherits from him; the same, they say, applies to the emancipated slave.

Mālik’s chief evidence is the generality of the Almighty’s words, “Allah will never grant the unbelievers a way over the believers” (al-Nisāʾ 4:141). He argues that because the walāʾ did not accrue to the master on the day of manumission, it cannot accrue to him thereafter.

However, if the walāʾ is valid on the day of emancipation and some subsequent impediment arises, the scholars agree that once the impediment is removed the walāʾ returns to its holder.

For that reason they concur that when a Christian dhimmī frees his Christian slave before either of them accepts Islam, and the slave then becomes Muslim, the walāʾ is suspended; should the master then enter Islam, it reverts to him—even though they have differed as to