What is the ruling regarding the assumption of liability (daman) and loyalty (wala') when multiple owners jointly manumit shares of a jointly owned slave while solvent?
General Chapter
Al-Mughni
Book of Manumission
Primary text
If two or more solvent owners manumit shares of a slave, their manumission extends (sarāyā) to the rest of the slave. The liability for the remaining share is divided equally among those who manumitted, irrespective of their ownership proportions, and the loyalty is divided among them in thirds (for the owner of half and the owner of one-sixth shares in the example given). This is the position of Al-Shafi'i. The justification is that the manumission of the share constitutes the destruction of the freedom of the remainder, a matter in which they co-participated equally, thus necessitating equal liability, similar to cases involving shared causation of harm.
Supporting text
An alternative view, attributed to one narration of Malik, suggests that liability should be divided according to the ownership shares because the extension of freedom resulted from the manumission of their owned portions, similar to expenses (nafaqah) or the right of pre-emption (shuf'ah). Under this view, the loyalty would be divided into quarters, with the owner of half receiving three-quarters and the owner of one-sixth receiving one-quarter of the loyalty.