or he comes and says, “You owe me such-and-such,” and you reply, “Yes.” The author does not mean to explain that when a claim is made against a person and he acknowledges what is claimed against him, the claim is established and the claimant is given what he claims, for this is obvious and unproblematic. Rather, his point is that it is valid as an acknowledgment.

Issue: If physiognomists attribute a child to two fathers, is he affiliated with both of them?

According to the madhhab, he may be affiliated with two fathers if the physiognomists determine this to be the case; but if they attribute him to one of them, he is affiliated with that one.

The scenario is that two men have intercourse with a woman under a mistaken assumption, each believing her to be his wife, and she becomes pregnant from that intercourse. If the physiognomists attribute the child to both of them, he is affiliated with both.

How is a child affiliated with two fathers named?

If the two fathers have the same name—for example, Muhammad and Muhammad—we would call him, for instance, Abdullah ibn the two Muhammads. If their names differ, then the name of each father must be mentioned separately; thus we would say, for example, Abdullah ibn Muhammad and Salih, and so on.