Muwatta, Book of Manumission and patronage

The Book of Manumission and Clientage (Itq and Wala') is the twenty-fourth book of the Muwatta in the transmission of Yahya ibn Yahya al-Laythi from Malik ibn Anas, in the edition of Bashshar Awwad Ma'ruf (1997), in the second volume. It occupies pages 323 to 341 in the PDF pagination, and contains 43 numbered texts (2240–2282) in thirteen chapters. It concerns manumission and its rulings, and the related matters of clientage, contractual manumission, umm walad and the freed slave who is set free to go, and the slaves who may be freed in expiations. ^{1 2}

• Whoever frees his share in a slave, and conditions on manumission (2240–2243). ^{1 3}
• Whoever frees a slave who owns no property other than him, and the judgement on a slave's property when he is freed (2244–2247). ^{4 5}
• Manumission of umm walad, and general rulings on manumission (2248–2250). ^{5 6}
• Which slaves may be freed in obligatory expiations, and which may not (2251–2260). ^{6 7}
• Freeing on behalf of the dead by a living person (2261–2262). ^{8 9}
• The merit of freeing slaves, and the freeing of an adulteress and the son of adultery (2263–2264). ^{9 10}
• Where clientage goes: to the one who frees, and the drawing of clientage by a freed slave (2265–2276): the story of Barira, the prohibition of selling or giving away clientage, the child of a li'an, and the clientage of the child of a slave by a free woman. ^{10 11}
• Inheritance of clientage, inheritance of the freed slave who is set free to go, and the clientage of one freed by a Jew or a Christian (2277–2282). ^{12 2}

Malik holds that clientage belongs to the one who frees, so it may not be sold or given away, and it may not be made a condition for anyone other than the one who frees by contract. He holds that a slave owed in expiation may not be bought on the condition that he be freed, and that a Christian, a contractual slave, a tadbir slave or an umm walad may not be freed for it. In the clientage of the freed, he rules that clientage passes to the one who freed, or to whom the grandfather draws it, and holds that the child of a li'an is attributed to the freed people of his mother unless he is joined to his father. ^{7 13 11}

The editor quotes Ibn Abd al-Barr on the chain of the hadith on freeing a living person on behalf of the dead, and that it is cut off, since al-Qasim did not meet Sa'd ibn Ubada, and that the story of Sa'd is reported by many routes on charity, manumission and fasting. He also records the variation of transmitters in the hadith "the most expensive of them in price", prefers the hadith of Abu Maraw from Abu Dhar, and holds Malik's raised report to Aisha to be an error. ^{8 9}

Each text of the book has its own record. It names the highest narrator and the chapter, gives the substance of the report in the museum's own wording, and records the editor's takhrij where it is needed. See Clientage for the places where its rulings appear in the book. ¹