marriage, and he agreed with others on the obligation of spending on him, his emancipation upon the son of his son, the emancipation of the son of his son upon him, the negation of retaliation from him for killing the son of his son, the legal punishment (hadd) for slandering him, and other rulings of the father, yet then he made the most distant agnates more entitled than him regarding wala’.

1064 - Issue: He said: "If a man dies leaving behind two sons and a mawla, then one of the two sons dies after him leaving a son, then the mawla dies, the wala’ belongs to the son of his emancipator; because wala’ goes to the eldest. If the two sons died after him and before the mawla, and one of them left behind a son, and the other nine, the wala’ would be between them according to their number, with each one of them having one-tenth."

This is the opinion of the majority of scholars. Imam Ahmad said: This has been narrated from Umar, Uthman, Ali, Zayd, and Ibn Mas‘ud. Sa‘id narrated: Hushaym informed us, Ash‘ath ibn Suwwar informed us, from al-Sha‘bi, that Umar, Ali, Ibn Mas‘ud, and Zayd used to assign wala’ to the eldest. This was also narrated from Ibn Umar, Ubayy ibn Ka‘b, Abu Mas‘ud al-Badri, and Usama ibn Zayd. This was also the opinion of ‘Ata’, Tawus, Salim ibn ‘Abd Allah, al-Hasan, Ibn Sirin, al-Sha‘bi, al-Nakha‘i, al-Zuhri, Qatada, Ibn Qusayt, Malik, al-Thawri, al-Shafi‘i, Ishaq, Abu Thawr, the People of Opinion (ashab al-ra’y), and Dawud; all of them said: The wala’ is for the eldest. Its explanation is that the mawla who was emancipated is inherited by the closest of his master's agnates to him, and the most entitled among them to his inheritance on the day of the slave's death. Ibn Sirin said: When the emancipated person dies, one looks to the person closest to the one who emancipated him, and his inheritance is assigned to him. When the master dies before his mawla, the wala’ does not transfer to his agnates, because wala’ is like lineage; it does not transfer, nor is it inherited, but rather one is inherited through it. Therefore, it remains for the emancipator forever and does not cease from him, evidenced by his saying (peace be upon him): "Wala’ belongs only to the one who emancipated," and his saying: "Wala’ is a bond like the bond of lineage."