insane—so Hammad said to him: What prompted you to say this? Muhammad replied: And you, what prompted you to say this? This was a minor part of Hammad’s response, and he deserved to be asked to repent for this; if he repented, good, otherwise his neck would be struck. As for us, we rely on what was narrated by Imran ibn al-Husayn, that a man from the Ansar emancipated six slaves during his sickness, having no wealth other than them. The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) divided them into six parts, then emancipated two and kept four in servitude. This is an explicit text (nass) regarding the place of dispute and is an argument for us in the two contested points: combining freedom and using the drawing of lots. It is a sound (sahih) and established hadith, narrated by Muslim, Abu Dawud, and the rest of the authors of the Sunan. It was narrated from Imran [ibn al-Husayn] by al-Hasan, Ibn Sirin, and Abu al-Muhallab, three imams. It was also narrated by Imam Ahmad from Ishaq ibn Isa, from Hushaym, from Khalid al-Hadhdha’, from Abu Qilabah, from Abu Zayd al-Ansari, from the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him). Ahmad said: Abu Zayd al-Ansari is one of the companions of the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him). A similar report is narrated from Abu Hurayra from the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him). Furthermore, because it is a right whose division causes harm, it is necessary to aggregate it through lots, just like compulsory partition when one of the partners requests it. A counterpart to this in partition is a house owned by two people, one owning a third and the other two-thirds, which contains three equal rooms; there is no harm in dividing it, so if one of them requests division, each room is made into a share, and lots are cast between them with three shares: one share for the owner of the third, and two shares for the other. As for their argument that the report contradicts the analogy of principles, we reject this; rather, it is in agreement with it, for the reasons we have stated. Their analogy is invalid because if he owned only a third of them, it would be impossible to aggregate his portion, and there is no harm in dividing a bequest, unlike our issue. If we were to concede that it contradicts the analogy of principles, the statement of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) is obligatory to follow, whether [it agrees with analogy] or contradicts it; for it is the statement of the infallible one, whom Allah the Almighty made his speech an argument over all creation, and commanded us to follow and obey him, warned of punishment for disobeying his command, and placed success in his obedience and misguidance in his disobedience. The possibility of error occurring in the analogizer (qais) in his analogy is greater than the possibility of error occurring to the companions of the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) and the imams after them in their narration. Moreover, they have already contradicted the analogy of principles with weak hadiths, as they made wudu with nabidh (date water) mandatory while traveling but not while residing, and they invalidated wudu due to loud laughter during prayer but not outside of it. Their argument in our case regarding the contradiction of analogy and principles is more severe and greater, and the harm in their school is greater. This is because there is a consensus that the owner of a third in a bequest and its like receives nothing until the heirs receive double that. In our case, they emancipate a third and force the slaves to work (istis'a) for the two-thirds, so the heirs receive nothing at the moment at all. They refer them to the labor (si'aya), and perhaps nothing at all will be obtained from it, or perhaps only one or two dirhams per month will be obtained from it, rendering it in the ruling of someone who has received nothing. There is harm in this to the slaves, because they force them to earn and labor against their will. Sometimes the one forced to do this is a slave woman, which leads her into prostitution, or a slave man, so he steals or commits highway robbery. There is also harm in it to the deceased, as they have led his bequest to