Muwatta Malik: Book 37, Hadith 10

Malik related to me from Yahya ibn Said that Abu’d-Darda wrote to Salman al-Farsi, “Come immediately to the holy land.” Salman wrote back to him, “Land does not make anyone holy. Man’s deeds make him holy. I have heard that you were put up as a doctor to treat and cure people. If you are innocent, then may you have delight! If you are a quack, then beware lest you kill a man and enter the Fire!” When Abu’d-Darda judged between two men, and they turned from him to go, he would look at them and say, “Come back to me, and tell me your story again. A quack! By Allah!”

Yahya said that he heard Malik say, “If someone makes use of a slave, without permission of its master, in anything important to him, whose like has a fee, he is liable for what befalls the slave if anything befalls him. If the slave is safe and his master asks for his wage for what he has done, that is the master’s right. This is what is done in our community.”

Yahya said that he heard Malik say about a slave who is part free and part enslaved, “His property is suspended in his hand and he cannot begin anything with it. He eats from it and clothes himself in an approved fashion. If he dies, his property belongs to the one to whom he is in slavery.”

Yahya said that he heard Malik say, “The way of doing things in our community is that a parent can take his child to account for what he spends on him from the day the child has property, cash or goods, if the parent wants that.”