Muhanna said: I asked Ahmad, may Allah be pleased with him, about a man who married off his slave woman, and she said, "I have become pregnant." Her master said to her, "What is in your womb is free," yet she was not pregnant. He said: "She does not become free." I repeated the statement to him once more, and he said: "Nothing will come of it. He only intended what was in her womb, and there was nothing." Al-Marwazi said: Abu Abdullah was asked about a man who emancipated a slave of his and exempted his service for a month, and he said: "It is permissible."

2006 - Issue: He said: (There is no harm in the mukatab [slave under a contract of manumission] hastening [the payment of] some of his kitaba [contractual amount] to his master, and [for the master] to waive some of his kitaba from him.)

The general principle is that if he concludes a kitaba contract with him for one thousand in two installments over a year, then says, "Hasten five hundred of it for me, and I will waive the remainder for you," or "I will absolve you of the remainder," or says, "Make a settlement with me for it for five hundred in advance," this is permissible. This is the opinion of Tawus, al-Zuhri, al-Nakha'i, and Abu Hanifah. Al-Hasan, Ibn Sirin, and al-Sha'bi disliked it. Al-Shafi'i said: It is not permissible, because this is a sale of one thousand for five hundred, which is the usury of the Jahiliyyah, which consists of increasing the debt in exchange for extending the term. This is also a gift. Furthermore, this is not permissible between strangers, and usury operates between the mukatab and his master, so this is not permissible between them, just as it is not between strangers. Our argument is that the wealth of the kitaba is not firmly established, nor is it a valid debt, evidenced by the fact that he is not compelled to pay it, he may refrain from paying it, and a guarantee for it is not valid. What he pays to his master is the earnings of his slave. The Shari'ah only made this contract a means to emancipation, and made the deferment of payment obligatory within it as an exaggeration in achieving emancipation and as a lightening of the burden upon the mukatab. Therefore, if it is possible for him to hasten it in a way that waives some of what is upon him, it is more effective in achieving emancipation and lighter upon the slave. The master accomplishes the waiving of some of his wealth from his slave, and from Allah, the Exalted, comes the waiving of what He made obligatory upon him regarding the term for his own benefit. It differs from other debts for the reasons we have mentioned, and it differs from strangers in that this is his slave; thus, he is more akin to his absolute slave (qinn). As for their statement that usury operates between them, we deny this based on what Ibn Abi Musa mentioned. Even if we were to concede it, this case is distinct from other forms of usury for what we have mentioned. This differs from the usury of the Jahiliyyah, for it is a waiving of a portion of the debt, while the usury of the Jahiliyyah is an increase in the debt; and the usury of the Jahiliyyah leads to the depletion of the debtor's wealth and him taking on debt he is unable to fulfill, for which he is imprisoned and taken captive. This [current case], however, leads to hastening the emancipation of the mukatab, his deliverance from servitude, and the lightening of his burden; thus, they are distinct.