As for one who carries out a partial manumission, that situation falls into two categories.

First: a person who frees only the portion of the slave that he himself owns, and he owns nothing of the slave beyond that freed share.

Second: a person who owns the entire slave but, by choice, frees only a part of him.

When a slave is jointly owned by two men and one of them sets his share free, the jurists differ over the ruling. Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī, and Aḥmad ibn Ḥanbal hold that if the emancipator is solvent, the remaining share is appraised at a fair market value; he pays that amount to his partner, the whole slave becomes free, and the right of allegiance (walāʾ) goes to the emancipator. If the emancipator is insolvent, no payment is required, the freed portion remains free, and the rest of the slave stays in bondage with all the legal consequences of slavery.

Abū Yūsuf and Muḥammad al-Shaybānī say that if the emancipator is insolvent the slave must work to pay the value of the remaining share to the co-owner who did not free him. The slave is deemed free from the day the first partner emancipated his share, and the walāʾ belongs to that first partner. This view is also held by al-Awzāʿī, Ibn Shubruma, Ibn Abī Laylā, and a group of the Kufan jurists, except that Ibn Shubruma and Ibn Abī Laylā allow the slave, once his emancipator becomes solvent, to reclaim from him whatever he earned toward his freedom.

As for the partner of the emancipator, the majority say he may choose either to free his share or to require that it be appraised against the emancipator.

Abū Ḥanīfa, however, gives the solvent partner three options: (1) he may free his share as his partner did, in which case the walāʾ is shared between them—an option over which there is no disagreement; (2) he may require that his share be appraised and paid for; or (3) if he prefers, he may oblige the slave to work and pay off that amount, the walāʾ then being shared. After the emancipator has paid the valuation, he may recoup it from the slave, whereupon the entire walāʾ belongs solely to him.

Mālik and al-Shāfiʿī base their position on the ḥadīth of Ibn ʿUmar in which the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) said: “Whoever frees his share in a slave and possesses enough wealth to cover the slave’s price, the slave is appraised at a fair value; he then gives his partners their shares, and the slave is completely freed. Otherwise, only the part he has freed is free.”

Muḥammad, Abū Yūsuf, and those who agree with them rest their case on the ḥadīth of Abū Hurayrah that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) said: “Whoever emancipates a portion of his slave—the slave’s release is to be paid from his wealth if he has wealth. If he has no wealth, the slave is required to work for it without hardship.”

Both ḥadīths are recorded by the authors of the authentic collections—al-Bukhārī, Muslim, and others—and each camp offers its own arguments to establish the superiority of the report it follows.

Among the points with which the Kufans weakened the ḥadīth of Ibn ʿUmar is that one of its transmitters expressed doubt about the additional wording that conflicts with the ḥadīth of Abū Hurayrah, namely his statement: