Accordingly, if he has wealth and says, “Give me my money; I have children,” we say: No, because we are uncertain whether you have reached puberty. This is the established position: he is not judged to have reached puberty when we are uncertain about it, because the default assumption is that he has not.

“How, then, was the child created?!” They say: The question of how the child was created does not arise for us, because establishing lineage is something the Sacred Law seeks to uphold; thus, it is affirmed on the slightest basis of doubt. For this reason, it was previously mentioned in the laws of inheritance that if the heirs acknowledge that someone is their brother, he inherits and his lineage is likewise established, even if their father knew nothing of this man. So long as it is possible, no one contests the claim, and his lineage is unknown—that is, subject to the well-known conditions—the established position is that he is linked in lineage to the deceased and inherits from him.

His statement: “Whoever acknowledges having had intercourse with his slave woman, whether vaginally or otherwise, and she gives birth after six months or more, her child is ascribed to him.” A slave woman becomes a legal marital bed only through intercourse. Take note of this difference between a slave woman and a wife: a wife becomes a legal marital bed by the marriage contract, provided intercourse is possible, even if it has not been established that it occurred. A slave woman, however, becomes a legal marital bed only through intercourse. How is intercourse established? It is established in one of two ways: either through his acknowledgment, or through testimony establishing that he had sexual intercourse with her. Her mere claim is not accepted, for she may claim that he had intercourse with her in order to become an umm walad if she bears a child, while he denies it.

A slave woman is a woman owned in bondage, and such a woman is among those with whom Allah Most High has permitted intercourse, as He says: “Those who guard their private parts, except from their wives or those whom their right hands possess—for then they are free from blame.” [Surah al-Mu’minun] Once it is established that her master has had intercourse with a slave woman, she is called a surriyyah, because her master has taken her as a concubine. Thus, if