or weapons, and has witnesses testify to the dedication, yet never rides those horses in battle nor hands the weapons over to anyone who will fight with them, and then dies while they are still in his possession, the ḥabs is void and the items pass to his heirs as normal inheritance. If, on the other hand, he had already deployed the horses in the path of Allah and they were routinely returned to him for fodder once the expedition ended—likewise the weapons, for he would feed the horses and keep both them and the arms in good repair until the next campaign—then his dying with them still in his custody does not harm the ḥabs; it remains valid and operative.

Whoever endows slaves for the path of Allah is to have them employed in works of righteousness and charity connected to that cause. They are not to be sold unless they become incapable of service; should that happen, the same procedure applies to them as to a horse that has been judged unfit for jihād: the slave is sold and, with the price, a ḥijīn (half-bred war-horse) is bought; if the proceeds are insufficient for that, a baradhūn (pack horse) is purchased; and if even that cannot be afforded, the amount is added toward the cost of a horse to be used in the path of Allah.

Endowed garments that have deteriorated to the point of unusability are likewise to be sold, and the proceeds spent in the path of Allah.

In Mālik’s view, when something is dedicated ‘in the path of Allah,’ the frontier zones (thughūr) and the ribāṭ garrisons have the strongest claim to it. The avenues of Allah are many, however, and we have already set out several of them in the section on charitable donations.