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Why is the child of adultery attributed to its mother and not to its father if he marries her after the pregnancy, despite the saying: "He waters the crop of another"? And why is a man's child from his divorced wife, if she became pregnant through adultery, considered a child of adultery? Is there not a contradiction and injustice in this?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

"The attribution of an illegitimate child to the adulterer is a matter of scholarly disagreement among jurists. The majority opine that the child is not to be attributed to him, citing the prophetic tradition: 'The child belongs to the [owner of the] bed, and for the adulterer is the stone [i.e., deprivation/rejection],' and that adultery is a prohibited means by which lineage cannot be established, and that lineage is intended for the honor of affiliation, which is not realized through adultery. As for someone who divorced his wife irrevocably (three times) and then committed adultery with her after the divorce, while she was pregnant before it, the child is not considered illegitimate. One should show respect towards scholars and their scholarly efforts."

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

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