—such as those who taught his Sunnah to the people and conveyed it to them, those who fought the apostates after his death, those who pledged allegiance to him beneath the tree, those who fought at Badr, and others. Rather, those who were hypocrites were lost among the multitude.
Likewise, kinship—such as someone being another person’s father or brother—is recognized for some legal purposes but not others. [For it is established in the two Sahīh collections that “Sa‘d ibn Abī Waqqās and ‘Abd ibn Zam‘ah ibn al-Aswad brought a dispute before the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, concerning the son of Zam‘ah’s slave woman] (*). ‘Utbah ibn Abī Waqqās had committed fornication with her during the pre-Islamic period, and she had borne him a child. ‘Utbah told his brother Sa‘d, ‘When you reach Mecca, seek out the son of Zam‘ah’s slave woman, for he is my son.’
“So Sa‘d and ‘Abd ibn Zam‘ah brought their dispute concerning him before the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace. Sa‘d said, ‘O Messenger of Allah, this is my brother ‘Utbah’s son. My brother ‘Utbah instructed me concerning him: “When you reach Mecca, seek out the son of Zam‘ah’s slave woman, for he is my son.” Do you not see, O Messenger of Allah, his resemblance to ‘Utbah?’
“‘Abd said, ‘O Messenger of Allah, he is my brother, the son of my father’s slave woman. He was born to my father’s bed.’
“The Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, saw a clear resemblance to ‘Utbah and said, ‘He is yours, ‘Abd ibn Zam‘ah. The child belongs to the man to whose bed he is born, and the adulterer gets the stone. Veil yourself from him, Sawdah.’” This was because of the clear resemblance to ‘Utbah that he saw.
Thus, the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, deemed him Zam‘ah’s son because he had been born to his bed, and made him a brother to Zam‘ah’s children by saying:
“He is yours, ‘Abd ibn Zam‘ah.”
Sawdah thereby became his sister: he would inherit from her, and she from him, because he was the son of her father Zam‘ah, born to his bed. Nevertheless, the Prophet instructed her