Muwatta Imam Malik (Riwayat Yahya)

Imam Malik, may Allah have mercy on him, said: According to us, the ruling is that if a mudabbar (a slave set free after the master's death) injures someone, then the master dies and there is no other wealth except the mudabbar, one third of the mudabbar will be set free. Then the blood money (diyah) for the wound will be divided into three parts: one part will be assigned to the one third of the mudabbar that has been set free, and two parts will be assigned to the two thirds that are in the hands of the heirs. Now the heirs have the choice: if they wish, they may hand over these two thirds also to the injured party of the mudabbar, or if they wish, they may pay two thirds of the diyah and keep the two thirds of the mudabbar, because the diyah for this wound is due to the crime of the slave, and there is no debt upon the master, so the act done by the master due to the slave’s fault—freedom or tadbeer—will not be invalidated. If, in this situation, the master is also in debt, then from the mudabbar, in accordance with the diyah and the debt, first the diyah will be paid, then the debt will be paid, then whatever part of the slave remains, one third of it will be set free and two thirds will go to his heirs, because the compensation for the slave’s crime takes precedence over the master’s debt. Its example is this: A person dies and leaves behind a mudabbar slave whose value is one hundred and fifty dinars, and this slave had injured someone for whom the diyah for the wound is fifty dinars, and the master also has a debt of fifty dinars. So first, from the value of the mudabbar, fifty dinars for the diyah will be paid, then fifty dinars for the debt will be paid, then whatever remains, one third of it will be set free and two thirds will go to the heirs. Thus, the diyah takes precedence over the debt, and the debt takes precedence over the tadbeer, and as for the will (wasiyyah) in one third of the wealth, the tadbeer will not be valid when the master has a debt, whatever it may be, rather tadbeer is a kind of will, and Allah the Exalted says: «﴿مِنْ بَعْدِ وَصِيَّةٍ يُوصَى بِهَا أَوْ دَيْنٍ﴾ [النساء: 12]» and the debt takes precedence over the will in general.