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." The agnates of the master only inherit the wealth of his mawla through the wala’ of his emancipator, not the wala’ itself. The meaning of this opinion becomes clear through the two issues of al-Khiraqi which he mentioned here, namely: If a man dies leaving two sons and a mawla, then one of the two sons dies after him leaving a son, and then the mawla dies, he is inherited by the son of his emancipator, not the son of the son of his emancipator; because the son of his emancipator is the closest of his master's agnates. If the master were to die leaving his son and his grandson, his inheritance would go to his son, not his grandson, and the same applies if the mawla dies. The other issue is, if the two sons died after him and before his mawla, and one of them left a son, and the other nine, and then the mawla died, his inheritance would be shared among them according to their number, with each one of them having one-tenth, because if the master had died, his inheritance would be shared among them in the same way, and thus is the inheritance of his mawla. If wala’ were inheritable, the ruling would be reversed in both cases. Inheritance in the first case would be between the son and the grandson because the two sons would have inherited the wala’ from their father, then what belonged to the son who died would transfer to his son, making the mawla's inheritance between him and his uncle in equal halves. In the second case, the individual grandson would receive half of the wala’ through his inheritance from his father, and the other nine sons of the other grandson would receive the other half divided among them according to their number. Shurayh dissented and said: Wala’ is in the status of wealth, it is inherited from the emancipator, so whoever owns anything in his lifetime, it belongs to his heirs. It has been narrated from Umar, Ali, Ibn Abbas, and Ibn al-Musayyib similar to this. Hanbal and Muhammad ibn al-Hakam narrated from Ahmad something similar. Abu Bakr considered them to be mistaken in their narration, for the group narrated from Ahmad the same as the opinion of the majority. Abu al-Harith said: I asked Abu Abd Allah about wala’ going to the eldest, and he said: It has been narrated from Umar,