Back to search

What is the ruling regarding two children born of adultery who bear the name of the deceived husband, and what is the ruling regarding the husband if he does not expose these two children for fear of his legitimate children's reputation?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

The Shari'ah prioritizes caution in establishing lineage. If there is even a weak possibility of attributing a child to someone who is married or has a concubine, the child is attributed to them. A married woman's confession of adultery does not negate the lineage of her children from her husband unless he disavows them through li'an, based on the Prophet's (PBUH) saying: "The child is for the bed, and for the fornicator is the stone." As for the husband, if he is certain of his wife's adultery and that the children are not his, he must promptly disavow them through li'an. Otherwise, he deserves the warning mentioned in the hadith: "Any woman who introduces to a people one who is not among them is not from Allah in anything," and a man is like a woman in this ruling.

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

Read the full answer on Ftawy