Khidma (service and servants; the rules of hiring them)

الخدمة

Khidma (service) lexically is a trade; a servant may be male or female. The entry separates service from craft (mihna) and from work ('amal). ¹ The majority forbid a non-mahram woman to serve a single man in his house when the service needs seclusion, without distinction between free and slave, or handsome and plain; some jurists allow it with dislike, and Ahmad distinguishes free from slave and bars seclusion. ² A grown man who may not look at a woman may not serve her in private, except a mahram, a boy, a slave or a eunuch; outside service, like buying what she needs in the market, may be done by a stranger. ^{2 3} A Muslim may not serve an unbeliever by hire or loan, but he may contract for a particular task such as sewing, and a Muslim slave may be lent for a specific task. ^{3 4} A father must serve his poor, young, sick or incapable child; the Hanafis and Malikis forbid a child to make his parent serve him, while the Hanbalis and Shafiis dislike it; a husband must provide a servant for a wife whose rank forbids her to serve herself. ⁴ A husband must provide a servant for a wife who cannot serve herself by rank or illness; if she refuses to grind and bake and cannot serve, he must bring ready food; the majority require one servant, while the Malikis and Abu Yusuf allow more when her standing needs it. He may not change her servant unless there is suspicion or betrayal, and providing a servant for a poor husband is disputed. ^{5 6} The servant must be a Muslim woman, a discerning boy, a mahram or a eunuch; a dhimmi woman serving a Muslim woman is disputed, and the servant's keep covers food, housing and clothing for the majority. ⁷ If the wife asks for wages or the servant's keep, the Shafiis and Hanbalis do not oblige the husband to accept, since her serving him saves his rights and comfort; the Hanafis hold that she may not take wages for serving her husband or herself, as this resembles a bribe for a duty, unless she is ill or of a noble family. ⁸ If the husband offers to serve her himself to drop the servant's cost, the Hanafis, the sounder Shafii view and the preferred Hanbali view say he may not and she need not accept; the Malikis say he may and she must agree. ⁸ Poverty of the husband in paying for a servant does not justify divorce; the debt stays on him according to the Shafiis and Hanbalis, and falls away for the Hanafis and Malikis, since no one is charged beyond what he has been given. ⁸ On the servant's zakat al-fitr: if the servant is hired with the wife's own money the husband owes nothing; if she is her own slave or one the husband must maintain, the duty follows the maintenance; if he serves her with his own slave or maid, he pays for that slave by ownership. ⁹ A wife serving her husband is permitted by all; the majority say it is not obliged, the Hanafis say it is owed religiously, not judicially, and the Malikis and others require inner household work by custom, citing the case of Ali and Fatima and a hadith on the wife's obedience. ¹⁰ A free husband serving his wife is permitted by the majority, and she may accept it; the Hanafis forbid making his service her mahr, though it is valid as a mahr if it is herding her flock or working her land. ¹⁰ The jurists agree that a Muslim may be served by an unbeliever, and that a Muslim may hire himself out to an unbeliever for a defined task, but not for forbidden work such as pressing wine or herding pigs. On hire or loan of a Muslim to an unbeliever for service: the Hanafis permit it with dislike; the Malikis divide it into permitted, disliked, forbidden and unlawful; the Shafiis forbid both direct and indirect service and order the hire ended; the sound Hanbali view forbids it, while another view permits it with dislike. ¹¹