He said, “Tell me what happened.”

She replied, “One of the two men used to come, driving the camels of her family. He would stay with her so long that he—and we—were sure she had conceived. Then he went away and his blood was shed; after that the other man (she meant the second) took his place. I do not know which of them is the father.” At this the physiognomist exclaimed, “Allāhu akbar!”

ʿUmar then said to the boy, “Choose whichever of the two you wish to be your father.”

They say that ʿUmar’s judgment, issued in the presence of the Companions on the basis of physiognomy without a single objection, is tantamount to consensus.

According to Mālik, when the physiognomists declare joint paternity the child is left until he reaches maturity; then he is told, “Attach yourself to whichever of them you wish,” for a single child is not affiliated to two men. Al-Shāfiʿī holds the same view. Abū Thawr, however, contends that if the physiognomist says the two men share in him, he is counted as the son of both.

Mālik rejects dual filiation, citing the Almighty’s words:

“O mankind, We have created you from a male and a female” (Qurʾān 49:13).

Those who accept physiognomy also cite the report of Ibn Shihāb from ʿUrwah from ʿĀʾishah:

“The Messenger of Allah—peace and blessings be upon him—entered delighted, the joy shining from his face, and said, ‘Have you not heard what Miḥriz al-Mudlijī said to Zayd and Usāmah?’ Looking at their feet, he declared, ‘These feet are from one another.’”

They add that the same is related from Ibn ʿAbbās and from Anas ibn Mālik, with no Companion dissenting.

The Kufan jurists argue that no claim in a disputed child is decided for either party unless there is a marital bed, because the Prophet—peace be upon him—said, “The child belongs to the bed.” If no bed exists, or both men share the same bed, the child is divided between them. They treat this as a purely legal, not biological, affiliation: the fact that reason does not allow a child to have two natural fathers does not prevent the Sacred Law from attaching him to both. A similar opinion is reported from ʿUmar, and ʿAbd al-Razzāq relates it from ʿAlī.

Al-Shāfiʿī says that physiognomy is accepted only on the testimony of two men. From Mālik there are two reports: one agrees with al-Shāfiʿī, the other accepts the testimony of a single physiognomist.

In Mālik’s well-known position, physiognomy is applied only in matters of slave-ownership, not in lawful wedlock; Ibn Wahb transmits from him a view identical to that of al-Shāfiʿī.

Abū ʿUmar Ibn ʿAbd al-Barr said: “There is a sound, connected ḥadīth on this question that a group of ḥadīth scholars and literalists have followed.” Al-Thawrī narrated it from Ṣāliḥ ibn Ḥayy al-Shaʿbī from Zayd ibn Arqam, who said:

“ʿAlī was in Yemen when a woman was brought before him with whom three men had lain during the same period of purity. He asked each of them to concede the child to his companion, but they refused. So he cast lots among them, awarded the child to the one on whom the lot fell, and imposed upon him …”