Itq (manumission)

Lexically itq means leaving the state of being owned; in the law, as al-Durr al-Mukhtar defines it and Ibn Abidin explains it, it is the master's release of his right over his slave in a specified way by which the slave becomes one of the free. ^{1 2} It is the first book of volume 3 of Radd al-Muhtar. ³

Ibn Abidin explains that manumission follows divorce because both release a right: releasing a claim to retaliation is called pardon, releasing a debt acquittal, releasing the marital tie divorce, and releasing slavery manumission. ¹ He distinguishes 'itq from i'taq: 'itq is a quality of the one who was a slave, i'taq the act of the master; so the book is titled 'itq to include cases where freedom comes without an act of freeing, such as istilad and owning a close relative. ¹

He reports from al-Misbah that the three-letter verb 'ataqa is intransitive and the four-letter a'taqa transitive: one says "I freed him (a'taqtuhu), so he is freed (mu'taq)", not "'ataqahu"; a freed man is 'atiq, a freed woman 'atiqa. ¹ Its verbal nouns are 'itq and 'ataq. ² Some jurists define it as establishing the slave's "legal capacity", his ability to make legal transactions and his fitness for guardianship and testimony, and removing others' control over him. ² The clause "by which he becomes one of the free" excludes tadbir and contractual manumission before the master's death or before payment. ²

Ibn Abidin reports that for Abu Hanifa manumission can be partial and for his two companions it cannot, the difference resting on what manumission produces first: for him the end of ownership, followed by the end of slavery once ownership of the whole has ended; for them the end of slavery. ²

Its pillar is the wording that expresses it, whether an acknowledgement of freedom, a claim of kinship or a performative phrase. ² Among cases of freedom without words he gives that of a foreigner from enemy territory under safe-conduct who buys a Muslim slave and takes him into enemy territory: the slave is freed for Abu Hanifa, against his two companions. ² Manumission is obligatory in expiations, for killing, zihar, breaking the fast and oaths; it is valid from a non-Muslim; it may be recommended or permitted; and it is not worship by nature but becomes an act of devotion or of sin through intention. ²

He supports its recommendation with the hadith of Abu Hurayra (may God be pleased with him) that whoever frees a Muslim, God frees for every limb of his a limb of the freer from the Fire, and cites reports in Abu Dawud and Ibn Majah that a Muslim man's freeing of a Muslim man is his ransom from the Fire, and likewise a woman's freeing of a woman. ² The sourcing and grading of these reports from the hadith books is not given here.

Tadbir, istilad and the umm al-walad, expiation for oaths.