Bayhaqi 21770 — A man has intercourse with his slave woman by right

Ibn Shihab said: I came to Damascus while Abd al-Malik was at that time occupied with his affairs, so I sat in a gathering whose people I did not know. A man came forward and they made room for him. He said: "What is your view about something the Commander of the Believers mentioned just now, which reached him from Madinah concerning the ummahat al-awlad: are they to be kept as slaves or set free?" I said: Sa'id bin al-Musayyib (may Allah have mercy on him) mentioned that there was a man of Quraysh whose intelligence and eloquence were admired. Then his father died and left wealth, and his mother was an umm walad. They put a value on his mother and kept outbidding him for his mother until they had taken him out of his inheritance. He passed by Sayyiduna Umar (may Allah be pleased with him), who called him and asked him what he had received of his father's inheritance. He said: "I came away from my father's inheritance with (nothing but) my mother." He said: "By Allah, I shall certainly say something about this by which I will protect the people from it." So he stood and addressed the people, then said: "O people, any free man who leaves behind an umm walad who bore him a child, she is free." He (Ibn Shihab) said: Then (that man) took me by the hand, and it turned out he was Qabisah bin Dhu'ayb, and he took me in to Abd al-Malik bin Marwan. Abd al-Malik had mentioned to Qabisah that it was (from) Sa'id bin al-Musayyib but had not been sure of it. So I was brought in to him, and (Qabisah) told him this hadith that I had told him. He began by asking me about my lineage, and when I reached my father, he said: "Your father was indeed one who stirred up trouble in the fitnah. What is the hadith of Sa'id that Qabisah told me from you?" So I told him the same as I had told Qabisah. He ordered it, and it was put into effect, and he said: "A man who has left behind someone like you has not died."