annulment. We say: They would be harmed by the length of the waiting period, for its start is from the time of the annulment; this is why they possess the right of annulment even if they converted and were manumitted before him. As for if they choose to remain, and say: We have consented to the husband, the Qadi stated that their right of choice lapses; because it is a state in which the choice of annulment is valid, so the choice of remaining is valid in it, similar to the state of their agreement upon Islam. The companions of Al-Shafi'i said: Their right of choice does not lapse; because their choice of remaining is contrary to the state they are in, which is their progression toward definitive separation, so it is not valid, just as if a wife in a revocable divorce were to apostatize, and the husband were to revoke the divorce while she is in her state of apostasy. This is invalidated by the case where he says: When the beginning of the month arrives, you are divorced, and then she is manumitted and chooses her husband.

Section: If a free man converts and has slave women under him, and one of them is manumitted, then she converts, and then the remaining ones convert, he does not have the right to choose from the slave women; because he is the possessor of the marital tie of a free woman at the time of their agreement upon Islam. If one of them converts with him, then is manumitted, and then the remaining ones convert, he has the right to choose from the slave women; because the consideration is the state of choice, which is the state of their agreement upon Islam, and in the state of their agreement upon Islam, she was a slave woman.

Section: If he converts and has four slave women under him, and he lacks the means (to marry free women) and fears falling into sin, and they convert with him, he has the right to choose one of them. If she does not provide him chastity, he has the right to choose from among them one who does provide him chastity, according to one of the two narrations; the other (narration) states he cannot choose except one. This is the school of thought of Al-Shafi'i. The reasoning for both has already passed in the beginning of the marriage of slave women. If the two conditions are absent in her, the marriage is annulled in