it is destroyed. A similar view was narrated from Sharik. It is possible that if he knew of the second [person] at the time he acknowledged the first, and he knew that if he acknowledged him after the first it would not be accepted, he would be liable, because he allowed the right of another to be lost through his negligence. But if he did not know, he is not liable, because he is obligated to acknowledge the first when he knows of him, and he does not need to bring him to a judge; and whoever does what is obligatory has acted well and is not a betrayer, so he is not liable. It is said: This is the qiyas (analogy) of Shafi'i's statement. Abu Hanifa said: If the payment was by a judge's ruling, he pays to the second half of what remains in his hand, because the judge's ruling is like taking it from him by force. If he paid it without a judge, he pays to the second one-third of the entire property, because he paid to the first what he was not entitled to, as a donation. Our evidence against the first [view] is that he acknowledged what he was obligated to acknowledge, so he is not liable for what was destroyed by it, just as if the Imam had cut off the hand of a thief, and the effect spread to his life. If he acknowledges a third after them, and they both confirm him, his lineage is established, and he takes a quarter of what is in the hand of each of them, if each of them has one-third of the property. If they both deny him, his lineage is not established, and he takes a quarter of what is in the hand of the acknowledged one, and the details regarding his liability for what increased are as in the preceding case. Ibn Abi Layla, the people of Medina, and some of the people of Basra held the same view as ours.

Section: Whenever you wish to know the excess, multiply the problem of acknowledgment by the problem of denial, then multiply what the acknowledger has from the problem of acknowledgment by the problem of denial if they are disjoint, and multiply what the denier has in the problem of denial by the problem of acknowledgment; whatever is between them is the excess. If there is no excess in his hand, then there is nothing for the acknowledged one, such as three separated brothers, if the uterine brother acknowledges a brother or sister, there is nothing for the acknowledged one, because it is [at the expense of] someone else, and it is the same whether he acknowledges a uterine brother or other than him. According to Abu Hanifa, if he acknowledges a uterine brother, he gets half of what is in his hand, and if he acknowledges a brother of both parents, the acknowledged one gets five-sevenths of what is in his hand. If there were three separated sisters, and the uterine sister acknowledges a brother, if there is an 'asaba (residuary) in the problem, there is nothing for him; but if there is no 'asaba, he gets one-sixth of what remains in her hand, because the problem of denial is out of five, and acknowledgment is out of six; if you multiply one by the other, it becomes thirty,