counts for every form of expiation just as it does for a free man. According to scholars other than Mālik, however, a slave can discharge the expiation only by fasting.

If someone carries out the expiation on behalf of a person who broke his oath without first securing that person’s permission, Mālik and his companions deem it valid, though I would rather that no one expiate on his behalf except with his express authorization.

The expiation may be given only to a free, Muslim needy person—poor or destitute—who is not legally entitled to the offender’s support. If he were to feed a non-Muslim, a well-to-do person, or a slave, and later learned their actual status, the expiation would not suffice.

Should the one who swore by Allah make the expiation before actually breaking his oath, that is acceptable. Some have maintained that it is not, yet the former view is the established position of Mālik’s school.

Others have added that advance performance is invalid only with respect to fasting, because a bodily act cannot be carried out before its appointed time, whereas in the other forms of expiation paying in advance is permissible. Even so, offering the expiation after the oath has in fact been broken is preferable in every instance.

If a person breaks his oath while affluent but delays the expiation until he becomes indigent, or breaks it while indigent but delays until he becomes affluent, or breaks it while a slave but delays until he is emancipated, in all such cases what counts is his condition at the time he performs the expiation, not his condition when he violated the oath.