—on the understanding that the slave pays over part of the contract price and the master waives the remainder.

If the mukātab settles his instalments before they fall due, he is freed at once and the master is bound to accept the payment. Should the mukātab fall ill and wish to accelerate payment so that his free heirs may inherit from him, that is permissible and the master must accept it. If he pays off his kitābah while sick, any bequest he makes within one-third of his estate is valid.

Standing surety for a kitābah debt is not valid; whoever undertakes such suretyship does not become liable for it.

If a master, in his will, remits his mukātab’s entire debt, the lesser of the two amounts—the contractual price or the slave’s market value—is charged to the disposable third of the estate. If that whole sum is covered, the slave is completely emancipated; if only part of it is covered, he is freed in proportion to what the third bears.

Likewise, if the master forgives only part of the kitābah in his will and that remission exceeds his disposable third, then the lesser of the two figures—the amount forgiven or the corresponding share of the slave’s value—is first assigned to the third. A matching share of the slave’s person is then set free, and an equivalent proportion of the debt is cancelled. What remains of him stays under kitābah for the balance still owed: if he later pays it, he is wholly freed; if he cannot, the unpaid portion reverts to slavery, while the part already emancipated never returns to bondage.