THE EVIDENCE OF ISNĀDS 173

In the first half of the second century A.H., the sale of the walāʾ of a manumitted slave¹ was customary and considered valid. Ibn Saʿd, v. 309, relates of Abū Maʿshar: “He was the mukātab slave² of a woman belonging to the Banū Makhzūm; he paid [the stipulated instalments] and became free; later, Umm Mūsā bint al-Ḥimyariyya — [the mother of the Caliph Mahdī] — bought his walāʾ, and he considered himself henceforth a client of the ruling house.” The common reaction of the Iraqians and the Medinese was to forbid this practice; see Muw. Shaib. 343 for the Iraqians, Muw. iii. 257 for the Medinese.³ This common doctrine was expressed in a Medinese tradition (Muw., loc. cit.), with the isnād Mālik — ʿAbdallāh b. Dīnār — Ibn ʿUmar — Prophet, to the effect that the Prophet prohibited selling or giving away the right of walāʾ. As Zurqānī points out, ʿAbdallāh b. Dīnār is the common link in the isnāds of its several versions, and it can therefore be dated in the generation preceding Mālik. The reason for this doctrine appears in one of the versions quoted by Zurqānī, which considers walāʾ as a kind of kinship (luḥma), in the same way as relationship by blood.

But the Medinese still allowed the sale of the mukātab slave.⁴ This doctrine is expressed in a tradition with the isnād Mālik — Hishām — his father ʿUrwa — his aunt ʿĀʾisha — Prophet, to the effect that a certain Barīra, a mukātab slave-woman, found it difficult to meet her obligations under the contract, that ʿĀʾisha offered to pay for her, provided she (ʿĀʾisha) could have the right of walāʾ, that the owners of Barīra were willing to sell her to ʿĀʾisha, provided they retained the right of walāʾ, and that the Prophet advised ʿĀʾisha to agree to their condition because it would be invalid and the right of walāʾ would belong to her by law, as she was the actual manumitter; and the Prophet afterwards proclaimed this rule of law (Muw. iii. 251). Hishām is the common link in the several versions of this family isnād, although a parallel version, through Zuhri — ʿUrwa — ʿĀʾisha, passes him by (see Zurqānī ad loc.). As this tradition shows the Prophet and ʿĀʾisha in a disconcerting light, the crucial point was formally mitigated in a version with the new isnād Mālik — Yaḥyā b. Saʿīd — ʿAmra — ʿĀʾisha, and a shortened one with the isnād Mālik — Nāfiʿ — Ibn ʿUmar — ʿĀʾisha (Muw. iii. 255, 256).