"Call Them After Their Fathers..." (Quran 33:5) As Per the DNA

Published in August 9, 2017

Translated by: Ahmed Fathy

Firstly: this is an important message containing a question that entails Islamic/Quranist legislative ijtihad (i.e., innovative, creative thinking) that copes with the modern age. We copy the entire message below, without names, and we follow it by our reply.

The Message: 

   (... I'm a female single 40-year-old female lawyer and I studied Sunnite sharia laws, and yet, I cannot find a fatwa answering my question, or rather my problem. I desire that you, Sir would publish my message here along with your reply/fatwa, because this will prove beneficial to many similar cases. I implore you to bear patiently with my narration and forgive my frankness. I was raised by my only brother who was older than myself, and we both lived with our mother who is a widow. My elder brother had no one in his life except his sister (me) and his mother as well as his only childhood friend and partner in trade. When my elder brother got married, he moved to the only apartment above ours (we own the building) as me and my mother continue to live on the ground floor. Since their honeymoon, my elder brother quarreled a lot with his wife who never liked my mother and brother nor me, of course, as she felt envious of my elder brother's love and care for his family and his only friend and partner. My mother and I used to hear the quarrels and screams but never interfered as we disliked the wife very much in our turn. We have a spacious roof where we rear chicken, geese, ducks, etc. and I used to get away from the screams by going there to feed them as an adolescent young woman at the time. Strangely, my elder brother's best friend and partner in trade used to interfere to settle disputes between my brother and his wife and making them reconcile every time. More strangely, this 'friend' began to meddle more in my brother's conjugal life and he visited them more often than not. The wife began to have less quarrels with my brother. This 'friend' of his began visiting this wife while my brother was absent in his travels to make his trade prosper. This 'friend' noticed that I hated his frequent visits during the absence of my brother, and he stopped coming to the house. Yet, at one time, I got to roof to feed the ducks and chicken, but I heard strange voices in a room there that we use to store old things, and I pushed the door to find my brother's wife having sex with this 'friend'! I got shocked and fainted. When I came to my senses, I found myself alone on the roof, but once I got into my room, this wife talked to me alone to threaten me so as not to tell anything to anyone, or else, she would turn my brother's life into real hell and would make him desert me and our mother. Though I was just an adolescent girl, I decided to remain silent as I knew that my brother adored her and might not believe me saying what I know about his wife and his only friend! I decided not to create more troubles, but I kept weeping for days, until I was calm and told my mother everything. My mother told me she suspected as much, but she agreed to me to keep the whole matter as a secret, while imploring and invoking God to punish this unfaithful, evil woman and strike her dead one day. Later on, this wife got pregnant and she quarreled daily with my brother and demanded divorce, but my brother used to obey all her commands and beseech her not to ask for divorce for the sake of the coming baby. Suddenly, the 'friend' left the partnership with my brother and took his share of money/profits and he left to a Gulf monarchy where he settled and never contacted my brother ever since. The wife stopped demanding divorce and stopped quarreling with my brother. She died two days after giving birth to a baby boy; our prayers were answered, I think. For the rest of his life, my brother kept mourning for the loss of his wife whom he loved and the mother of his only child. My brother died in a car accident. Before his death, I noticed that the son, as he was growing up, was very much the pitting image of the friend! My mother and I tore a photo of my brother and his 'friend' in their school days so as not to let my brother suspect anything; the boy was very much looking like this 'friend' when he and my brother were friends in the primary school! The boy is raised now by me and my mother, and he is 17 years old now, and we love him so much and he loves us very much in his turn, as we are his only family. Of course, he is to inherit his share of my brother's money, as per Quranic sharia laws, but I always feel bound to tell him that I am not actually his paternal aunt nor my mother is his grandma. But my mother has told me not to tell him so as not to devastate and ruin his life. I do not care about the money at all; I care about the truth and that I am not committing any sin at all, as God in the Quran urges us to call children after their fathers, and so, the boy must carry the name of his biological father. This urge to tell the truth persists now more than ever because the 'friend' returned to Egypt now as a millionaire who owns a big tourism company in Cairo and he is still single. I feel like contacting him to tell him about my suspicions and to convince him to perform a DNA test, and if he turns out to be the real father, he must receive the boy to live with him and enjoy his legal wealth. If the boy turns out to be my brother's child, things would remain the same and my heart would be put at rest. Is my view here agrees to the Islamic/Quranic sharia laws? What about your own theory of Quranism? What is your own view? How on earth can I inform this innocent boy of the whole matter? By the way, I'm still single and refused to get married because I still have a complex since I caught the wife and this friend red-handed on the roof. I dedicate my life to my work, and I am a very successful lawyer whom people trust to settle their problems ... By the way, I read your articles, fatwas, and books, and though I disagree with you on various issues, I admire your fatwas very much and I seek to get your opinion ... Thank you  ...)

Lastly: Our Reply:

 We advise you with the following points.

1- Do NOT inform the son.

2- You must make a phone call first to contact this man to have a meeting with him to narrate everything frankly to him. Our expectations are that he may be cooperative and perform a DNA test to know the truth. We think he would desire to know if he is the biological father or not; the DNA test is perfectly OK to determine the biological fathers of children, as per this verse: "Call them after their fathers; that is more equitable with God..." (33:5)   

3- It is easy to convince the son to perform medical analyses so that the saliva sample is received from him without his knowing anything about the real intention (i.e., the DNA test) at least until a settlement or a solution to the problem is reached.

4- If the man is turned out to be the real biological father of the son, the son may live with him and the father must tell him the truth that he is his father.

5- If the man refuses to perform the DNA test and to admit that the child is his, you must forget all about the whole matter at once; do not ruin the life of the innocent child. 

6- Anyway, this son who is being raised by you and your mother will get you huge reward from our Lord God in this world and the next, whether he continues to live with both of you or with his real, biological father; he has been raised by both of you as his real folks and he would be still linked to you as his family. Children never forget their childhood memories; money of any inheritance is not important in that case; money comes and goes, but the only thing that remains is one's good deeds. Your caring for him with your mother is the best good deed that will be rewarded by God in this world and the next if you dedicate your religion and acts of worship only to Almighty God within monotheism. 

7- We expect – and hope – that contacting this man would be a chance to correct grave errors of the past; he is now a different, single man, and he may reconcile with the past and may even propose to you to be his wife so that the son would have a mother and a father; please bear this in mind while tackling this sensitive issue, and maybe all will turn out well and right at the end.