The Legal Conceptualization of Prospected Freedom: The kitāba Between Manumission, Self-Purchase, and Employment

The term kitāba refers to an unspecified writ or document. In a legal sense, it denotes a contract concluded between a slave and his or her owner, stipulating that the former will obtain freedom once the contractual obligations are fulfilled. It is rooted in the Qur’anic revelation (Q 24:33) and, moreover, shows similarities to forms of self-purchase known in Antiquity. When it comes to Islamic slavery, the kitāba was a common legal tool from the earliest days of Islam until the period of abolition. In the Islamic legal discourse, the contract is treated regularly and throughout history by Muslim jurists not only in works of jurisprudence, but also in more practice-orientated literature such as manuals for notaries.

Most commonly, the kitāba is understood as a contract stipulating that the owner receives a certain amount of money paid by the slave in instalments over an agreed upon period with the prospect of manumission once this process is concluded successfully. However, a close examination of legal sources shows that this perception needs to be adjusted. In fact, the kitāba could also be concluded for other services. Therefore, the proposed paper aims at tracing the Ḥanafī legal discourse concerning the changing definitions and conceptualisations of the kitāba. Jurists such as al-Shaybānī (d. 189/805) and al-Sarakhsī (d. 483/ 1090) discuss the contract at least partly under the headline of manumission (ʿitq). Over the course of time, this perception seems to have undergone significant changes indicated already in al-Marghīnānī’s (d. 593/1197) Hidāya. In the 19th century, then, the contract is discussed in Egypt by ʿAbd al-Qādir al-Rāfiʿī (d. 1905) as related more closely to the concept of ijāra which does not only include the rent of objects but also a person’s labour.