Muwatta, Book of the contract manumission (mukatab)

The Book of Contractual Manumission (Mukatab) is the twenty-fifth 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 343 to 368 in the PDF pagination, and contains 65 numbered texts (2283–2347) in thirteen chapters. It concerns the contract of manumission by instalments and its rulings: judgement on it, its guarantors, its partial instalment payments, its sale, the mukatab's effort to earn, his injuries, his freeing before the due date, his inheritance, his conditions and his clientage, and then his bequest and his tadbir within a third of the property. ^{1 2}

• Judgement on the mukatab (2283–2298): that the mukatab remains a slave as long as anything of his contract is owed, and his inheritance, and the debts of creditors and of partners. ^{1 3}
• Guarantee in the contract (2299–2301): the guarantee of mukatab slaves for one another. ^{3 4}
• Partial payment in the contract (2302–2308): the division of a mukatab's payments between partners, and the rulings on inability and permission. ^{4 5}
• Injuries of the mukatab (2309–2311): the blood-money for an injury caused by a mukatab and by his child. ^{5 6}
• Sale of the mukatab (2312–2318): the sale of a contract and its instalments, and an umm walad and her child. ^{6 7}
• The mukatab's effort (2319–2322): the effort of the children of a mukatab and of his umm walad. ^{7 8}
• Freeing a mukatab who pays what he owes before the due date (2323–2325). ^{9 10}
• Inheritance of a mukatab once freed (2326–2329). ^{10 11}
• Conditions in the mukatab's contract (2330–2332): conditions on travel, service and sacrifice, and marriage. ^{11 12}
• Clientage of a mukatab when he frees his slave (2333–2335). ^{12 13}
• What is not permitted in freeing a mukatab (2336–2337). ¹³
• General reports on freeing a mukatab and his umm walad (2338–2339). ^{13 14}
• Bequest in the case of the mukatab (2340–2347): a mukatab whom his master frees at death, and his reckoning from the third. ^{14 2}

Malik holds that a mukatab remains a slave as long as anything of his contract is owed, and gives his clientage to the one who made the contract. He holds that a bequest to free a slave under a contract takes precedence over other bequests, and that what is counted from the third is the value of what remains of the contract. He makes the partners' permission a condition of the contract, and on the injuries of a mukatab he rules that he pays the blood-money from his contract if he is able, and if not, and he is unable, his master is given the choice. ^{5 14}

In a note the editor explains that qita'a is a verbal noun from "qata'a", named so because the mukatab pays off what his master asks, or completes his freedom with it. ⁴ The notes also name those who transmitted the book from Malik among his companions, such as Abu Mus'ab al-Zuhri. ¹

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 Contractual manumission for the places where its rulings appear in the book. ¹