from the absent wealth, the legatee takes an amount equal to one-third of it, until he has completed his third or taken the entire specific item. For example, if he left nine units in cash, twenty in debt, and a son, and he bequeathed the nine units to a man, the legatee has one-third of them, which is three. Every time something is collected from the debt, the legatee has one-third of it. So when one-third of the debt is collected, he receives one from the nine, until eighteen [of the debt] is collected, and his nine is completed for him. If the debtor denies the debt, dies, or there is despair of collecting the debt, the heirs take the remaining six from the cash. If the debt were nine, the son would take one-third of the cash, the legatee would take one-third of it, and one-third would remain held in reserve. Every time something is collected from the debt, the legatee receives an amount equal to one-third of it from the cash. When the entire debt is collected, the legatee's portion is completed to six, which is one-third of the total. If the bequest was for half of the cash, the legatee takes one-third of it, the son takes half of it, and one-sixth remains held in reserve; so whenever two-thirds of the debt is collected, the bequest is completed.

Section: If the debt is equal to the cash, and he bequeathed one-third of it to a man, he has nothing before it is collected. Every time something is collected from it, he has one-third, and the son has two-thirds. This is one of the two opinions of al-Shafi'i. He said in the other: He has a better claim to what comes out of the debt until he has collected his bequest. This is the opinion of the people of Iraq, because that comes out of the third of the present wealth. Our argument is that the heirs are his partners in the debt, but there is no partnership with them in the cash, so he is not specifically entitled to what is collected from it to the exclusion of them, just as if his partner in the debt were another executor, or as if he bequeathed the cash to one man and the debt to him and another person. Indeed, the one who is solely entitled to the bequest of the debt is not specifically entitled to what is collected from it to the exclusion of his partner, and it is the same here.

Section: If he bequeathed one-third of his wealth to a man, and he has two hundred in debt and a slave worth one hundred, and he bequeathed one-third of the slave to another, they shall divide the third of the slave in two halves. Every time something is collected from the debt, the legatee of one-third of the wealth has a quarter of it, and he and the other person have the amount of a quarter of what is collected from the slave between them in two halves.