for the arrangement may end up setting free someone who, on his own, lacks the ability to earn until he gains his liberty; just as it can lead to the continued enslavement of one who is able to work, it may likewise result in the emancipation of one who is unable.

As for Abū Ḥanīfah, he likened this case to a stranger standing surety for another stranger in matters where suretyship is permitted. He therefore deems the guarantee binding only when it is expressly stipulated, and not binding in its absence—yet even so, he does not allow suretyship in a mukātabah contract at all.

With regard to a slave jointly owned by two partners, the jurists disagreed whether either partner may enter his own share into a mukātabah without the other’s permission.
• One group said he may not; the contract is void, and whatever money has been received is divided between the partners according to their respective shares.
• A second group likewise forbade a man to place only his share of the slave under mukātabah.
• A third group drew a distinction, declaring the act valid with the partner’s consent and invalid without it.
The first opinion is that of Mālik, the second of Ibn Abī Laylā and Aḥmad, and the third of Abū Ḥanīfah and al-Shāfiʿī in one of his two views—the other coinciding with Mālik’s.

Mālik’s main argument is that, were such a contract allowed, it would oblige the partner who initiated the mukātabah to have the slave appraised and to pay that valuation, thereby freeing the entire slave—an outcome sanctioned only in cases of partial manumission. Whoever holds that he may make such a contract also holds that, if he is solvent, he must complete the slave’s manumission once the mukātabah price has been paid. Mālik is thus arguing from a foundational principle that his opponent rejects, yet the opponent’s rejection does not undermine the validity of the principle itself.

Making the partner’s permission a formal condition is, however, a weak position. Abū Ḥanīfah maintains that if the mukātabah was concluded with the partner’s consent, then every payment the slave makes to the contracting partner is immediately subject to the second partner’s share; the contracting partner then turns back to the slave for the balance, and the slave must work to repay it until the full amount agreed upon is delivered. This, nonetheless, departs markedly from the general legal principles.

As for placing under mukātabah someone who cannot earn, I know of no disagreement that the slave must be capable of working, in light of the Almighty’s words: “If you know there is good in them” (Q 24: 33). The scholars have differed over what this “good” entails.
• Al-Shāfiʿī said: earning capacity and trustworthiness.
• Others said: existing wealth and trustworthiness.
• Still others said: upright character and religious commitment.

Some scholars objected to contracting with a slave who possessed no trade, fearing he would be driven to beg; others permitted it on account of the ḥadīth of Barīrah, “She was placed under mukātabah on condition that she could ask people for help.” They nonetheless disliked putting a female slave with no income-producing skill under such an obligation, lest it become a means to fornication.

Mālik allowed mukātabah for a mudabbara and for anyone in whom some vestige of servitude remains, with the exception of an umm walad, for in his view the master has no right to make her serve him.