is that it is akin to an acknowledgement, because it occupies an intermediate position: it may be the initiation of a gift, or it may be a gift on account of some prior matter. Hence, there is a difference of opinion concerning it. The stronger view is that it is like a bequest, since it is possible that he intended thereby to show kindness to him through that gift.

Someone may ask: How can you hold that it is like a bequest when, at the time of the gift, the recipient is not an heir, and thus the ground for suspicion is in fact absent? A bequest, on the other hand, only takes effect after death, when the ground for suspicion exists. This gives us pause before affirming that a gift is like a bequest. Yet the fact that it is a gift made during a terminal illness supports treating it like a bequest.

Thus, the first principle is this: if a sick person acknowledges something in favour of an heir, his acknowledgement is not accepted. Or, if you prefer, it is not binding unless the heirs approve it. It is also said that it is not accepted under any circumstances.

Second: if he acknowledges something in favour of an heir who becomes a non-heir by the time of death, the ruling does not change; his acknowledgement is invalid, because what counts is his status at the time of the acknowledgement.

Third: if he acknowledges something in favour of a non-heir who becomes an heir by the time of death, his acknowledgement is valid, because what counts is the situation at the time of the acknowledgement.

If someone asks: Why do you not take the situation at death into account? We say: because the time of the acknowledgement is the time at which suspicion may arise. If the circumstances later change, a person does not know the unseen, and so he cannot be suspected regarding an act whose cause had not yet come into existence.

If a woman acknowledges, concerning herself, that she is married, and two people do not claim her, her acknowledgement is accepted. If her guardian who has the authority to compel her marriage acknowledges the marriage, or the guardian whom she authorized to act for her does so, it is valid. If a person acknowledges the lineage of a minor or an insane person of unknown lineage, affirming that he is his son, his lineage is established. If the man is deceased, the child inherits from him. And if someone makes a claim against another person concerning something and the latter confirms it, it is valid.

His statement, “If a woman acknowledges, concerning herself, that she is married, and two people do not claim her, her acknowledgement is accepted,” means, for example, that a man takes hold of a woman and says, “She is my wife,” and she replies, “Yes.” She then becomes his wife, and her acknowledgement is accepted, because marriage entails a right over the wife. Thus, if she acknowledges it, her acknowledgement is accepted. The evidence that it is a right over her is Allah’s saying: “O you who believe, when you marry believing women and then divorce them before you…”