The Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, "Any slave who runs away has lost his protection."In another narration, "When a slave runs away, no prayer of his is accepted."In another narration, "Any slave who flees from his masters has committed disbelief until he returns to them."
قال رسول الله ﷺ: أيما عبد أبق برئت منه الذمة. وفي رواية: إذا أبق العبد لم تقبل له صلاة. وفي رواية: أيما عبد أبق من مواليه فقد كفر حتى يرجع إليهم.
Muslim narrated it in the Book of Faith (69). All three narrations come through different chains from Shaybi, from Jareer. But Shaybi said in the third narration, "By Allah, it has indeed been narrated from the Prophet ﷺ, but I dislike having it narrated from me here in Basra."Its meaning is that Mansur narrated this hadith from Shaybi, from Jareer, as a stopped report attributed only to him. Then, after narrating it as a stopped report, Mansur said, "By Allah, it is actually raised to the Prophet ﷺ, so know this, you select people present, for I dislike explicitly stating that it is raised in the wording of my narration, lest it spread from me in Basra, which is filled with the Mutazilah and Kharijites who hold that people who commit major sins will remain in the Fire forever. The Kharijites go further than holding they remain forever, ruling that such people are disbelievers, and they have a specious argument by clinging to the apparent meaning of this hadith." This is what Nawawi said in his commentary on Muslim.Ibn Salah said in Siyanat Sahih Muslim (p. 243), "The statement of Mansur bin Abdul-Rahman, the narrator of Jareer's hadith, 'I dislike having it narrated from me here in Basra,' was due to what had emerged in Basra among the Mutazilah and similar groups, so that they would not use it as evidence for their view concerning those who commit major sins."As for his statement in another narration, "If the slave runs away, his prayer is not accepted," it does not follow from non-acceptance that the prayer is invalid. Rather, validity may be established even without acceptance, meaning that he is not obligated to repeat it. So he is not punished with the punishment of one who abandons prayer altogether, but he is deprived of the reward that Allah has prepared for those who pray.There are five people named Mansur bin Abdul-Rahman. This one is Ghudani Ashall Basri, whom Ahmad bin Hanbal and Yahya bin Main deemed reliable, while Abu Hatim deemed him daif. The others are Qurashi, Barjami, Hajabi, and Mansur bin Abdul-Rahman who narrated from Hasan Basri and from whom Ibrahim bin Tahman narrated.As for what Abu Dawud (4360) and Nasai (4057) narrated through the route of Abu Ishaq, from Shaybi, from Jareer, as a raised report, "If the slave runs away to join shirk, then his blood becomes licit," this is daif because of Abu Ishaq, for he practiced tadlis and narrated with an ambiguous form of transmission (anana). He also contradicted the companions of Shaybi in the wording of the hadith, and there was disagreement over his chain, for sometimes it is narrated from Shaybi, from Jareer, other times from Amir, from Jareer, and other times from Jareer directly, without an intermediary. It appears that his companions were not precise in transmitting from him.