is automatically emancipated, according to Mālik and the majority of his companions. One example is a man who buys a woman who, unbeknownst to him, is his milk-sister; he has intercourse with her, she conceives and thus becomes an umm al-walad. When he later learns of the foster kinship, she is freed on the spot. The same ruling applies when the umm al-walad of a Christian master embraces Islam, or when the umm al-walad of a Muslim master is left behind because he has apostatized. Ibn al-Qāsim said: if the dhimmī converts to Islam after his umm al-walad has already accepted Islam, but before the judge pronounces her manumission, she remains his umm al-walad, for the issue is disputed among jurists.

When the master of an umm al-walad dies or sets her free, she is not subject to the full waiting-period (ʿiddah); she must only observe an istibrāʾ of one menstrual cycle. If she does not menstruate, the period is three months. Another view holds that her entire waiting-period is one cycle, with no mourning (iḥdād) required. If she is pregnant, delivery ends the istibrāʾ; if her cycles are irregular or she suffers continuous bleeding, the term is set at nine months. Her waiting-period after a husband divorces her is two cycles, and after a husband’s death, two months and five nights.

All children of an umm al-walad—whether born in wedlock or illicitly—are emancipated when she is emancipated; they share her status. Should she die before them while the master is still alive, their freedom is suspended until the master dies, whereupon they are freed by his death. He may, however, hire out their services, unlike those of their mother.

Jurists other than Mālik allow a master to lease an umm al-walad for whatever work she can competently perform, just as he may hire her out to her husband. A mukātib (a slave who has contracted to purchase his freedom) may not sell his umm al-walad. The same applies to a mudabbara: if she bears him a child while under a pledge of post-mortem emancipation, he may not sell her. Some say that such a mudabbara does not thereby become an umm al-walad when she is set free, but the former opinion is the definitive position of the school.