upon both of them, and they guarantee the right of their partner in it in two halves, and his Wala' (right of patronage) shall be between them in thirds; two-thirds for the owner of the half and one-third for the owner of the sixth).

The gist of this is that when a slave is jointly owned by a group, and two or more of them emancipate him while they are wealthy, their emancipation spreads to the remainder of the slave. The guarantee (of the slave's value) is distributed among them according to the number of their heads; they are equal in their guarantee and their Wala'. This is the position of Al-Shafi'i. It is possible that it is divided among them according to the extent of their ownership, which is the position of Malik in one of the two narrations reported from him; because the spreading (of emancipation) resulted from the emancipation of their two properties, and what is made obligatory by reason of property is proportional to it, such as maintenance and the entitlement of pre-emption (shuf'ah). Our argument is that the emancipation of a share is the destruction of the bondage of the remainder, and they have both participated in it, so they are equal in the guarantee, just as if one of them inflicted one wound and the other inflicted two wounds, and he died from them both, or if one of them threw a part of an impurity into a liquid, and the other threw two parts. It differs from pre-emption, for it is established to remove harm from the share of the one who did not sell, so its entitlement is according to the extent of his share. Furthermore, the guarantee here is for repelling harm from both of them, while in pre-emption it is to repel harm from them, and the harm from them is equal in terms of its introduction upon the partner. In pre-emption, the harm of the owner of the half is greater than the harm of the owner of the sixth, so they differ. When this is established, his Wala' is between them in thirds; because when we rule that the third is emancipated upon them in two halves, then half of the third is a sixth. When we add it to the half belonging to one of them, it becomes two-thirds, and when we add the other sixth to the sixth of the emancipator, it becomes a third. According to the other view, the Wala' becomes quarters between them: the owner of the half receives three-quarters, and the owner of the sixth receives one-quarter, and the guarantee between them is likewise. As for his statement "and they emancipated him together," it is because he stipulated in the ruling we mentioned their assembly in the emancipation, such that neither of them precedes the other, by them pronouncing it together, or one of them appointing the other as an agent to emancipate both of them together, or they appoint an agent to emancipate them, or they suspend his emancipation upon a condition and it is met. If one of them precedes the other, the share of his two partners is emancipated upon him, and the guarantee is upon him, and the Wala' belongs to him.