has not made manumission itself conditional here; rather, he has made the obligation to manumit conditional. He is therefore given the choice between carrying out the manumission he has made binding upon himself and offering expiation in its place.

Thus, if he says, “When I die, my slave is free,” the slave becomes free upon his death without any further act of manumission. According to the majority, he cannot revoke this arrangement for manumission upon death, although one opinion of al-Shāfiʿī and one report from Ahmad allow it. Whether he may sell the slave is the subject of the well-known disagreement.

But if he makes a bequest for the slave’s manumission, saying, “When I die, set him free,” he may revoke it, as with other bequests. He may also sell the slave in this case, even if selling a slave designated for manumission upon death is not permitted.

Abū ʿAbd Allāh Ibrāhīm ibn Muhammad ibn Muhammad ibn ʿArafah mentioned in his history that, when al-Mahdī saw that his household unanimously favored appointing his son as his successor, he resolved to remove ʿĪsā from the succession and called upon them to pledge allegiance to Mūsā. ʿĪsā refused to relinquish his position, claiming that he was bound by oaths that would strip him of his property and divorce his wives. Al-Mahdī summoned Ibn ʿUlāthah, Muslim ibn Khālid, and a group of jurists for him. They gave him a legal ruling that would release him from his oath, and he received a large sum of money—whose amount the historian mentions—in compensation for what his oath would entail. The matter continued until he was removed and allegiance was pledged to al-Mahdī and to Mūsā al-Hādī as his successor.

As for “Abū Thawr,” he held that, when manumission is made conditional as a form of oath, expiation for an oath suffices, as with a vow made in contention and anger. This was based on the previously cited report concerning Laylā bint al-ʿAjmāʾ, to whom ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿUmar, Hafsah, Mother of the Believers, and Zaynab, the stepdaughter of the Messenger of Allah (may Allah bless him and grant him peace), gave a ruling concerning her statement:

“If I do not separate you from your wife, every slave I own is free.”

This account is among those relied upon as evidence by the jurists concerning the question of “a vow