Chapter: Concerning the Rules for the Establishment and Non-Establishment of Lineage
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Chapter: On the Rules for the Establishment and Non-Establishment of Lineage

When a man’s wife or his slave-woman gives birth to a child whom it is biologically possible for him to have fathered, the child’s lineage is attributed to him and the newborn is deemed his. An example is when she delivers while living in his household, for the Messenger ﷺ said, “al-waladu lil-firāsh” (the child is attributed to the marital bed).

Such biological possibility exists in two situations:

1. The woman is still under the husband’s marriage contract and gives birth no sooner than six lunar months after intercourse became possible and they were together—whether he is presently with her or away. Since paternity is physically possible and nothing contradicts it, the child is ascribed to him.

2. The woman is no longer under his marriage bond, yet she gives birth within four lunar years of the date on which the divorce became effective. In that case the child’s lineage is traced back to the former husband, because the maximum gestation period is considered to be four years; therefore, if she delivers before that limit, paternity is deemed possible and the child is attributed to him.

For the child to be attributed to the husband or the one who divorced her in either of these two cases, each must be of an age at which offspring can normally be born—that is, at least ten years old.