so the freeing of his own portion is not incumbent upon him.
Ibn al-Qāsim said: If a slave is owned by two men and one of them first emancipates his entire share, after which the other emancipates only half of his share and then wants the remaining half—still in bondage—to be appraised against his partner, that is not allowed; the rest of his share is deemed free at his own expense. He added: if the second partner dies before this is done, whatever part of his share still remains in bondage must be appraised against the first emancipator.
Others hold that the slave is emancipated out of the second partner’s estate, provided he is solvent, and not from the first partner’s property, because no one has the right to split up the freedom of what he owns.
If one of the partners frees his share while sick and owns secure assets—real estate, date-palm groves, and the like—his entire act of manumission takes effect. If he owns no such secure assets, his partner’s share is appraised against him within the one-third of his estate, just as when a healthy man frees part of his slave: in that case he must set the whole slave free, whether solvent or insolvent, from the principal of his estate. Should he do so while ill, the manumission is likewise completed for him; concerning this it is said, “Allah has no partner.”
Anyone who bequeaths the emancipation of his slave and possesses secure assets will have the slave freed from one-third of the estate immediately upon the testator’s death, at the very moment ownership passes to the heirs. If there are no secure assets, the manumission does not take effect within that one-third until the estate is divided.
Whoever bequeaths the emancipation of only part of his slave frees no more than the portion he specified, although another opinion holds that the slave’s full freedom should be completed from the one-third.
If a man frees his share in a slave while insolvent and the slave is away from him on the day of manumission, then later becomes solvent and the slave is appraised, and he asks that the manumission be completed, judgment is given in his favor and the remainder of the bondage is appraised against him. According to Mālik, the slave becomes free once the owner petitions for the completion of the manumission, and nothing else is due from him, nor do the manumitter’s partners retain any claim, provided that on the day he set the slave free he was insolvent and the slave was present. This is the view of Mālik and his companions.