For this reason Mālik added a third class of stipulations—those which, if the stipulator insists upon them, render the contract invalid, yet if he waives them, the contract is sound. You should bear this rule in mind with respect to all other Sharʿī contracts.

One of the celebrated questions in this chapter is: when the master, in the kitāba, stipulates some service, travel, or the like, and the mukātab is able to settle his instalments before they fall due, is he emancipated or not?

Mālik and a number of jurists say: the stipulation is null, and the slave is emancipated once he has paid the whole sum.

Another group say: he is not freed until he both pays the full amount and fulfils the condition. It is related that ʿUmar b. al-Khaṭṭāb (may God be pleased with him) freed the state slaves on condition that they serve the Caliph for three years.

All agree that if a master emancipates his slave on condition that the latter serve him for a certain number of years, the emancipation is not completed until that service has been performed; by this analogy those who uphold the condition deem it binding. These are the well-known, practical questions that pertain to the underlying principles of this book.

There are, however, other questions that will be mentioned here although they belong to different works. When cited in this treatise they appear as subsidiary branches dependent on its principles; when treated elsewhere they are regarded as principles in their own right. Hence it is proper to record them here.

One of these concerns the case where a master marries his daughter to his mukātab and then dies, the daughter becoming his heir. Mālik and al-Shāfiʿī hold that the marriage is annulled, because she now owns a portion of him, and whatever a woman owns by right of possession is, by consensus, forbidden to her. Abū Ḥanīfah, however, maintains that the marriage remains valid, because what she inherits is merely a debt owed by the mukātab, not ownership of his person. Strictly speaking, this issue belongs in the Book of Marriage.

Another question is their disagreement when a mukātab dies while still owing both outside debts and part of the kitāba price: does his master rank alongside the other creditors? The majority say he does not; Shurayḥ and Ibn Abī Laylā hold that the master shares rateably with them.

They also differed when the mukātab becomes insolvent and his debts consume everything he possesses—does liability extend to his person? Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī, and Abū Ḥanīfah say the creditors have no claim on his person; al-Thawrī and Aḥmad say they may seize him unless the master redeems him.

All, however, agree that if he cannot pay the blood-money for offenses he commits, he is surrendered unless his master pays on his behalf. The ruling on whether the master shares with other creditors belongs to the Book of Bankruptcy, and the ruling on his offenses to the chapter on Crimes.

Among the judicial questions that are branch issues here but primary issues in the Book of Judgments is their dispute over the ruling when the master and the mukātab differ about the kitāba funds. Mālik and Abū Ḥanīfah hold that the mukātab’s statement is accepted; al-Shāfiʿī, Muḥammad, and Abū Yūsuf require both parties to swear mutual oaths and the contract is rescinded, by analogy with two disputants in a sale.

And the subsidiary questions