Its defect is removed. This is one of the two views of al-Shafi'i. If he has intercourse with her, her option is voided, whether she knew of the option or did not know. [Ahmad explicitly stated this. It is the statement of those we named at the beginning of the issue. The Qadi and his companions mentioned that she has the option even if she is penetrated, as long as she does not know.] However, if he penetrates her after she learns of it, she has no option. This is the view of Ata', al-Hakam, Hammad, al-Thawri, al-Awza'i, al-Shafi'i, and Ishaq, because if she permits him to have intercourse with her before she is aware [of her right], then nothing has occurred from her that indicates consent; thus, it is as if she were not penetrated. Our evidence is what has preceded of the hadith. Malik narrated from Ibn Shihab, from Urwa, that a freed slave woman of the Banu Adi, known as Zabira', informed him that she was under a slave, then she was emancipated. She said: Hafsa sent for me and invited me, and said: "Your affair is in your hands as long as your husband has not touched you; but if he touches you, then you have no authority over the matter." I said: "It is divorce, then divorce, then divorce." So she separated from him three times. Malik said, from Nafi', from Ibn Umar: "She has the option as long as he has not touched her." Furthermore, it is an option [to remove] a defect, so it is nullified by acting upon it despite ignorance, just like the option to return [an item] due to a defect. There is no sub-issue based on this view. As for the other view, if he has intercourse with her and she claims ignorance of the emancipation, and she is someone for whom such a thing could be hidden—for instance, if her master emancipated her in another city—then her statement is accepted along with her oath, because the original state is the absence of that. If she is someone for whom it would not be hidden, because they are both in the same city and it has become well-known, her statement is not accepted, because it contradicts the apparent [reality]. If she knew of the emancipation but claims ignorance of the establishment of the option, her statement is accepted because it