When Is a Child Born after Marriage Considered Illegitimate?

Question

Question: While Pathani was a minor, her father contracted her nikah with Fath Muhammad son of Shirin, but the bride’s send-off to her husband’s home did not take place. Having reached maturity, she went on living in her father’s house for a considerable time. In her father’s house a boy was born to this girl through fornication — that illegitimate boy who was born of zina; he was given to people to be brought up.

Answer

If a girl has been married and more than six months have passed since then, and a child is then born to her, it is not permissible to call her child illegitimate and a child of zina merely because the bride has not yet been sent off to her husband’s home, as long as four eyewitnesses of the zina do not give testimony according to the Shari‘a.

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

Preview. The full text opens with JavaScript enabled.