with two possibilities, each one of which is equal to the other, so favoring one over the other (24) is an arbitrary act (tahakkum) that may not be resorted to without proof. This objection applies to them in the first issue as well.

Section: If a freed slave marries a freed slave woman and she bears him two children, their wala' (patronage) belongs to the master of their father (25). If he denies their parentage through li'an (imprecation), their wala' reverts to the master of their mother (26). If one of them dies, his inheritance goes to his mother and her masters (27). If their father retracts his denial, their lineage is established to him, and he recovers the inheritance from the mother's masters. If their father was a slave and did not deny them, and the mother's masters inherited from the deceased child, and then the father is emancipated, the wala' is transferred to the father's masters, and they [nor the father] (28) have the right to recover the inheritance; because the wala' was only established for them at the time of the father's emancipation. This differs from when the father retracts his denial; because lineage is established from the time of the child's creation.

Section: If a slave marries a freed slave woman and she bears him children, they are free, and their wala' belongs to the masters of their mother. If one of them buys his father, he becomes free through him, and he possesses his wala', and he draws to himself the wala' of all his children. The wala' of the purchaser remains for the master of his mother; because he cannot be the patron of himself. This is the opinion of the majority of jurists: Malik among the people of Medina, Abu Hanifah among the people of Iraq, and al-Shafi'i. 'Amr ibn Dinar al-Madani dissented and said: He draws the wala' of himself, so he becomes a free man with no wala' upon him. Ibn Surayj said: This is a view potentially supported by the words of al-Shafi'i. There is no reliance (29) on this opinion due to its rarity and because it leads to the wala' being established upon his parents while not upon him, despite him being born to them during their state of slavery, or during the state where wala' was established upon them. We have no such precedent in the fundamental principles (usul), nor is it possible for him to be his own patron, who would act on her behalf, inherit from her, or marry her off. However, if this child bought a slave and freed him, then the slave bought the father of his emancipator and freed him, the wala' of his master would be transferred to him. Thus, this child would have the wala' over his emancipator by virtue of him freeing his father, and the freed slave would have the wala' of his emancipator by virtue of his wala' over his father and his drawing of his wala' by freeing his father. There is no impossibility in such a case, just as if a harbi (a combatant from the non-Muslim territory) freed a slave who then became a Muslim, and then his master was captured and freed him, each of them would become the patron of the other from above