If she dies while still in the purchaser’s possession, no compensation is due for either her purchase-price or her market value. Whoever leases out his umm al-walad, the lease is rendered void; but if it is not voided until the term has elapsed, the lessee has no claim against her owner.

Should the master of a slave-woman die while she is pregnant by him, she is freed the very moment of his death, before delivery; she both inherits and can be inherited from, and anyone who slanders her is liable to the prescribed ḥadd. This is Mālik’s ruling. A group of his followers maintain that her status remains in suspense until she gives birth; once she has delivered, the rights of freedom take effect, the slanderer is then punished, and any inheritance due to her is retained until she gives birth.

The master may repossess the property of his umm al-walad so long as he is not terminally ill—that is, in a condition that bars him from disposing of more than one-third of his estate. Creditors, however, have no right to seize her property unless it was given to her as a sham transfer (tawlīj) to shield assets. Whatever a man gives his umm al-walad while in sound health and not by way of tawlīj becomes hers, whether jewelry or other goods; and when he dies, if those goods are known to be hers, she is emancipated and her property remains hers.

If she is injured and her master dies before collecting the indemnity, the compensation goes to his heirs—though some say it follows her, like the rest of her property. If a man frees his umm al-walad while she is pregnant, he must support her on account of the pregnancy. The same applies when a free man is married to a slave-woman who gains her freedom while carrying his child: he must maintain her from the moment of her emancipation, for the child is then ascribed to him.

When a man is married to a slave-woman owned by someone else, she bears his child, and he later purchases her, she does not thereby become his umm al-walad, whether or not he purchases the child with her; the child, however, is set free the instant he acquires it. If he buys her while she is pregnant and she delivers in his ownership, she becomes an umm al-walad by virtue of that pregnancy.

Such is the distilled doctrine of Mālik. Some scholars of Madinah say she does not become an umm al-walad for him until she conceives after he has bought her; this view is also reported from Mālik, but the former is the definitive position of his school.

Any umm al-walad whose master is unable to have intercourse with her—