Abū Ḥanīfah maintained that once the debt of the mukātaba has been discharged, everything the mukātab leaves behind is inherited by all his children—those who were parties to the contract, those born during its term, his freeborn offspring, and the rest of his lawful heirs.
Al-Shāfiʽī, by contrast, held that neither the freeborn sons nor the children who were contracted—or born—in the course of the mukātaba inherit him. His entire estate reverts to the master, while the children who were themselves bound by the contract must work off their respective shares; the father’s own portion is remitted. Abū Ḥanīfah and the other Kufan jurists concur on the remittance of that paternal share.
Among those who hold that the father’s portion lapses, some reckon it according to the slave’s current market value—this is al-Shāfiʽī’s view—others by the original sale-price, and still others distribute it equally by head-count. They waive the father’s share only in respect of the children included in the contract, not those born during it, for offspring born while the mukātaba is in force are deemed appendages of their father.
Mālik’s principal argument is that all persons bound by a single mukātaba are mutually liable; therefore, when one of them is manumitted or dies, his quota does not fall from the remainder. The opposing camp counters with the principle that liability under a mukātaba is not joint. In his Muwaṭṭaʾ, Mālik even transmits from ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān a statement identical to the Kufan opinion.
The crux of their disagreement is the status in which the mukātab dies. Mālik says he dies as a mukātab; Abū Ḥanīfah, as a free man; al-Shāfiʽī, as a slave. Each school builds its rulings on that premise.
Al-Shāfiʽī argues that there is no middle state between slavery and freedom. Because emancipation becomes due only upon actual payment, and the installments have not yet been met, the mukātab dies a slave, for a deceased person cannot thereafter be manumitted.
The Ḥanafīs reply that manumission takes effect at the moment of death, provided the stipulated assets exist, since a person cannot enslave himself. Freedom, they say, is secured by the presence of the funds, not by their physical delivery to the master.
Mālik, however, regards death as occurring in an intermediate condition—the state of mukātaba itself. By denying inheritance to his freeborn children he assigns him the ruling of slaves, yet by withholding his estate from the master he accords him the ruling of free men. The issue thus remains a matter of juristic discretion (ijtihād).
A related question concerns the mukātab’s umm walad when he dies leaving sons unable to earn and the mother offers to work on their behalf. Mālik permits her to do so, whereas al-Shāfiʽī and the Kufans do not. Their proof is that, on the mukātab’s death, the umm walad reverts to the master’s property. Mālik, however, holds that the sanctity of the contract previously owed to her master now passes to her and to her sons.
Mālik’s view is also clear that if the mukātab dies leaving minor sons who cannot earn and an umm walad likewise incapable of work, she is to be sold and the balance of the mukātaba paid from her price. Abū Yūsuf and Muḥammad ibn al-Ḥasan rule that a mukātab may not be sold to his umm walad, whereas Abū Ḥanīfah and al-Shāfiʽī consider the sale permissible.