the middle one, then the eldest is a slave, and the youngest has the ruling of its mother. If he specifies the youngest, his two siblings are pure slaves, because she gave birth to them before the ruling of her being an umm walad. If he says: "It is from an ambiguous intercourse (wat' shubha)," then the child is free by origin, and his two siblings are owned. If he dies before specifying, his heirs are asked for the clarification, and their clarification takes the place of his. If they clarify the lineage but do not clarify the procreation (istilad), the lineage and the freedom of the child are established, but the ruling of procreation is not established for the mother nor for her other two children, because it is possible that it was from marriage or ambiguous intercourse. If they do not clarify the lineage and say: "We do not know that, nor the procreation," we present him to the qafa (experts in physical resemblance) (45). If they attach one of them to him, we attach him, and the ruling of procreation is not established for anyone else. If there are no qafa, lots are drawn between them; whoever the lot falls upon is emancipated and inherits. This is the opinion of al-Shafi'i, except that he does not grant him inheritance through the drawing of lots. We argue that he is a free person whose freedom is based on his father's acknowledgement of him (46), so he inherits, just as if he had specified him in his acknowledgement.

Section: If he has two slave women, each one having a child, and he says: "One of these two is my child from one of my slave women," you must look: if each one of them has a husband to whom the child could be attributed, his acknowledgement is not valid, and the two children are attached to the husbands (47). If one of them has a husband and the other does not, the acknowledgement is directed to the child of the other, because he is the one who can be attached to him. If neither of them has a husband, but the master has acknowledged having intercourse with them, they both become [his] bed, and both of their children are attached to him, if it is possible that they were born (48) after his intercourse. If it is possible for one and not the other, the acknowledgement is directed to the one for whom it is possible, because he is his child by ruling. If he has not acknowledged having intercourse with either of them, his acknowledgement is valid, and the freedom of the acknowledged child is established (49); because he has acknowledged the lineage of a minor whose lineage was unknown, while it was possible and there was no challenger to him regarding it, so his lineage is attached to him. Then he is tasked with the clarification, just as if he divorced one of his wives. When he clarifies, his clarification is accepted, because the reference for that is to him. Then he is asked for clarification on the manner of birth. If he says: "I procreated her while she was in my possession."