One day God's Messenger visited me looking pleased and asked if I was not surprised to hear that Mujazziz al-Mudlijl1 had entered, and seeing Usama and Zaid2 with a rug over them covering their heads and letting their feet appear, said, “These feet are related.”
(Bukhari and Muslim.)
1. Members of the tribe of Mudlij were said to have a reputation for being able to trace relationship from physical features.
2. Usama was Zaid's son.
‘A’isha said that ‘Utba b. Abu Waqqas enjoined his brother Sa'd b. Abu Waqqas that the son of Zam'a's slave girl was his, and told him to look after him. In the year of the Conquest Sa'd took him, saying he was his brother’s son, but ‘Abd b. Zam'a claimed him as his brother. They made a simultaneous plea to God’s Messenger, Sa‘d saying, “Messenger of God, my brother has enjoined me regarding him,” and ‘Abd b. Zam'a saying, "He is my brother and the son of my father's slave girl, being born on his bed.” God’s Messenger then said, "He belongs to you, ‘Abd b. Zam'a, for the child is attributed to the one on whose bed it is born, and the fornicator is deprived of any right.”1 He then told Sauda daughter of Zam'a to veil herself from him because of the resemblance to ‘Utba which he saw in him, and he did not see her till he went into God’s presence.2 In a version he said, “He is your brother, ‘Abd b. Zam'a because he was born on his father’s bed.”3
1. Al-hajar. This might alternatively mean that the fornicator is to be stoned.
2. i.e., until he died.
3. This explanatory addition does not occur in Masabih as-sunna.
Sa‘d b. Abu Waqqas and Abu Bakra reported God’s Messenger as saying, "If anyone knowingly claims as father one who is not his father, paradise is forbidden to him.”
He told of a desert Arab who came to God’s Messenger and said, “My wife has given birth to a black son and I have disowned him.” God’s Messenger asked him whether he had any camels, and when he replied that he had, he asked what their colour was and was told that they were red. He asked if there was a dusky one among them, and was told that there were some. He asked how he thought that had come about, and was told that it was a strain to which they had reverted. Then saying that this was perhaps a strain to which the child had reverted, he did not permit him to disown him.
