the guarantor is discharged. If, on the other hand, the guarantor pays, he may afterwards recover the sum from the debtor—an opinion held by a number of scholars. Mālik later revised his view, saying: the claimant has no recourse against the guarantor until the debtor is found to have no property and the creditor has waited—either because of the debtor’s confirmed insolvency, his prolonged absence, or his death leaving no estate. Only then may the guarantor be pursued.

Whoever guarantees another man’s debt without that man’s permission becomes personally liable, yet he may not demand repayment from the debtor until he has first settled the debt himself; once he has done so, he is entitled to reimbursement. Likewise, if a person guarantees a debt without the debtor’s consent, the guarantor may insist that the debtor—so long as the debt is already due—pay the creditor immediately so that the guarantor is released, or else provide a substitute whose solvency the guarantor can trust.

If someone assumes a debt owed by one man to another and the debtor is declared bankrupt, the surety enters his claim with the other creditors against the debtor’s estate. Should what he receives fail to cover the full amount, he may return to the guarantor for the outstanding balance. Later, if the bankrupt acquires property, the guarantor files alongside the other creditors for the portion he had paid, and in that respect he is treated as one of them.

The creditor should allow the guarantor time when the debtor’s absence is brief and his return likely; but if the debtor disappears for good, the guarantor must pay whatever he undertook.

If a man guarantees a debt that falls due at a fixed term and then dies before the term arrives, Mālik’s first opinion is that the entire amount is taken from the guarantor’s estate, paid to the creditor, and when the term matures the guarantor’s heirs may seek reimbursement from the debtor. According to the other opinion, an amount equal to the debt is merely set aside from the estate until the due date; if the money can then be collected from the debtor, the reserved sum is released, but if it cannot