through conduct: whatever people regard as a sale, gift, or lease is treated accordingly. The well-known position of al-Shāfiʿī requires a verbal formula, except in certain specified cases. Where a verbal formula is used, however, the majority hold that Islamic law prescribes no fixed wording; rather, whether the wording conveys the transaction is determined by customary usage. This is the position of the majority.

Accordingly, they recognize a gift as valid when expressed in such words as: “I grant you this house for your lifetime,” “I give you this food to eat,” or “I provide you with this animal to ride,” and similar expressions that those addressed understand as conveying a gift. Likewise, providing a woman with her bridal furnishings when she goes to her husband’s home constitutes a transfer of ownership to her, as the jurists of the schools of Abū Hanīfah, Ahmad, and others have ruled. This is because Allah mentions sales, leases, and gifts in His Book in general terms, without a fixed definition in either language or Islamic law; their meaning is therefore determined by custom. The purpose of speech is to convey meanings, so any wording that conveys the intended transaction suffices to conclude the contract.

Accordingly, under people’s customary practice, if someone buys a slave woman for his son and says, “Take her for yourself and enjoy intimacy with her,” or something similar, they regard this as a transfer of ownership.

Furthermore, if someone knows that intercourse with a slave woman is permissible only by virtue of ownership, then, in permitting his son to enjoy intimacy with her, he can only intend to transfer ownership of her to him. Thus, if something has occurred that signifies a transfer of ownership according to the majority of scholars—and theirs is the sounder of the two views—the son has had intercourse with a woman he owns. His child is free, with paternity established as his, and the slave woman becomes his umm walad; she may not be sold, given away, or inherited.

If, however, it is assumed that the father did nothing whatsoever to transfer ownership, but the son believed that he had become her owner, his child is likewise free, with paternity established as his, and he is not liable to the prescribed punishment. And if