women do not marry off, and conduct the contract, for women do not conduct the contract. And because a woman does not possess the authority to marry herself off, then she is even less authorized to do so for others.

1111 - Issue: He said: "And whoever is to marry off her female client (mawlat-ha) is the one who marries off her slave woman."

He means her freedwoman (atiqata-ha). There are two narrations regarding this. The first is that her female client (mawla-ha) has the right to appoint a man to marry her off, because she is her agnate (asaba) and inherits from her through agnation (ta'sib), so she is like the manumitter (mu'tiq). The second is that the guardian of her mistress is her guardian. This is the more correct view, because this is guardianship over the marriage of a free woman, and a woman is not among those who possess that authority, so it belongs to her agnates (asabat), for they are the ones who pay the blood money on her behalf and inherit from her through agnation in the absence of her mistress. Thus, they are her guardians, just as if it were impossible for the manumitter to marry off his freedwoman due to death or insanity. We have already mentioned that when the agnates from lineage are exhausted, the manumitting master takes charge, then his agnates after him, the closest then the next closest; it is the same here. However, the outward appearance of al-Khiraqi’s statement here is the prioritization of the father of the manumitter over her son, because he is the one who marries her off. We have mentioned the difference of opinion regarding this elsewhere. Two conditions are considered in his guardianship: the first is the absence of agnates from lineage, because the relative is closer than the manumitter and has more right than him; the second is the permission of the woman being married, because she is a free woman and he does not have the guardianship of compulsion (wilayat al-ijbar), as he is the most distant of the agnates.