If the master dies before she has paid and his estate contains enough property for her price to be taken from the disposable third, she is set free and the kitābah is annulled. If he leaves no assets other than her, one-third of her person is emancipated and one-third of the debt is cancelled, while the remaining two-thirds of her remains under kitābah for two-thirds of the stipulated amount. If she manages to pay that, the rest of her is freed; if she cannot, the two-third share reverts to slavery and she is not compelled to earn out the balance of her servitude. Intercourse with a mudabbara who has entered into kitābah is permissible.

Should the master of a mukātab become insolvent while owing a debt that predates the kitābah, the mukātab returns to slavery—unless the price fixed in the contract, were it sold, would cover the debt, in which case the kitābah is sold and he is not turned back into a slave.

The master may also sell the debt owed to him—that is, the amount of the kitābah—in exchange for goods delivered immediately and not on credit. According to Mālik, the purchaser thereby acquires the slave’s person: if the mukātab defaults he becomes the buyer’s slave, if he dies before paying the buyer inherits from him, and if he pays and gains freedom his clientage (walāʾ) belongs to the one who originally drew up the kitābah.

A number of Medinan scholars do not allow this sale, declaring it void as an impermissible gharar transaction, for the buyer does not know whether he will acquire the slave himself should the mukātab fail, or merely the contractual debt.

Mālik does not permit the sale of a single instalment of the kitābah, regarding this as gharar. On the sale of a fraction of the entire contract he voiced two opinions: he allowed it at one time and disapproved of it at another.

Mālik further rules that the mukātab may himself purchase his own contract and that dealings between him and his master in this regard are allowed in forms not permitted with a stranger—for example, exchanging cash for cash or goods for goods, or converting the price from gold to silver and vice-versa. If, however, the master sells only part of the kitābah, the mukātab has no greater right to buy it back than the purchaser; the preferential right exists only when the whole contract is sold, because that hastens his emancipation, which is not the case when only a portion is sold.

There is no harm in the master agreeing to a lump-sum settlement (muqāṭaʿa) with his mukātab.