to the mudabbir slave, because the declaration was made while the owner was in good health.

Al-Shāfiʿī, however, holds that priority is given to the slave who was set free outright, for such a manumission cannot be revoked, whereas—with him—tadbīr may be rescinded. For this reason, he maintains that the question properly belongs in the chapter on bequests.

Category Two. Its most celebrated problem is whether an owner may sell the slave for whom he has pronounced tadbīr. Mālik, Abū Ḥanīfah, and a number of the Kūfan jurists say that the master is not allowed to sell his mudabbir. Al-Shāfiʿī, Aḥmad, the Ẓāhirīs, and Abū Thawr say that he may revoke the tadbīr and sell the slave. Al-Awzāʿī holds that the slave may be sold only to someone who intends to manumit him.

Within this question Abū Ḥanīfah and Mālik disagreed on a subsidiary point: if the mudabbir is in fact sold and the purchaser then frees him. Mālik says the manumission takes effect, whereas Abū Ḥanīfah and the Kūfans say the sale is void, whether or not the purchaser sets him free; this, they maintain, better accords with analogy, for the prohibition is devotional in nature.

The principal evidence for those who permit the sale is the ḥadīth of Jābir: “The Prophet—may Allah bless him and grant him peace—sold a mudabbir.” Some also liken the case to an ordinary bequest.

The Malikis, by contrast, rely on the general import of Allah’s words, “O believers, fulfil your contracts” (al-Māʾidah 5:1). For tadbīr is a manumission deferred to a stated time, and so resembles the case of an umm walad or an unconditional emancipation. The underlying cause of the disagreement, therefore, is a clash between analogy and textual evidence, or between a general text and one that is specific.

All authorities agree that, with respect to ḥudūd, divorce, testimony, and all other legal capacities, the mudabbir remains subject to the rulings of slaves.

They differ, however, on the permissibility of intercourse with a female mudabbira. The majority of scholars deem it permissible. A report from Ibn Shihāb prohibits it, while al-Awzāʿī regards it as disliked if the master had not previously had intercourse with her before the tadbīr. The majority’s proof is the analogy with an umm walad. Those who forbid it liken her to a woman whose emancipation is merely postponed, and whoever forbids intercourse with such a woman likens her to a wife taken for a fixed term—that is, a mutʿa marriage.

The jurists unanimously agree that the master retains the right to the mudabbir’s services and may seize whatever property he possesses whenever he wishes, just as with any other slave. Mālik adds one exception: should the slave fall gravely ill, it is reprehensible for the master to do so.

Category Three concerns what is and is not carried over to the mudabbir through tadbīr. Among the famous questions here is their disagreement over the children borne by a female mudabbira after her master’s declaration—whether those children are conceived in lawful wedlock or through fornication. The majority say that such children take precisely her status: they are set free when she is set free and remain slaves so long as she remains a slave. Al-Shāfiʿī, in the opinion preferred by his followers, says that they are not emancipated along with her. All agree, however, that if the master frees her during his lifetime the children are freed with her.