If the debt does not consume the entire value of the slave, a share of him is sold equal to the creditors’ claims, and whatever remains of him is freed—so long as the bequeathable one-third of the estate can cover it. Should the one-third be insufficient, only the portion that it can bear is emancipated, because the manumission of a mudabbar is charged to that one-third and not to the capital of the estate.

Whoever places one-third, or any part, of his slave under tadbīr becomes bound with respect to the whole slave; the same rule applies to a woman who is married. It is permissible for a mudabbar to purchase himself from his master and thereby gain immediate freedom, and the master may likewise accept a payment from a third party in return for manumitting him.

If two men who share a slave both place him under tadbīr, the jurists have differed—some permit it, others deem it disliked. According to our school, it is effective once it is carried out.

Anyone who makes a bequest that his slave be set free after his death, or who says, “You are free after I die,” intending it as a bequest, has indeed made a bequest like any other and may retract it whenever he wishes. If he says, “You are free after I die,” intending neither tadbīr nor a bequest and without any specific intention, there are two opinions: one treats the slave as a mudabbar unless it later becomes clear that the statement was meant as a bequest; the other—my own view—treats it as a bequest unless it later becomes clear that tadbīr was intended.

A mudabbar remains a slave in every legal respect. His master may take his property so long as the slave is not suffering from a life-threatening illness; he may hire him out and seize his earnings. The same applies to a female mudabbar: she belongs to her master, who may have intercourse with her if he wishes, compel her to marry, and take her property and any children she bears to a husband other than himself. Those children share their mother’s status: they are freed when she is freed and remain enslaved when she remains enslaved. It makes no difference whether she was already pregnant at the time of tadbīr or conceived afterwards, provided the child is born at least six months after the day of tadbīr.

If she dies before her master, her child is emancipated on the master’s death out of the bequeathable one-third. The same ruling applies to the children of a male mudabbar by a slave-woman (as opposed to his wife): they are freed with him and remain enslaved with him. Should the master die and his one-third be insufficient to cover the manumission of both the mudabbar and his children, each of them is freed in proportion to the freedom granted to the other.