Also, for children born out of wedlock, whether at the time parents were Muslim or not, married or not, are the children that born out of wedlock mahrams to their siblings from their parents, as long as the father acknowledges that he is his son, and does DNA test fit into this?
Answer
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.
In this fatwa:
Mahrams (unmarriageable relatives) can kiss each other on the cheek occasionally, especially when they visit each other or arrive from a journey.
In responding to your question, Sheikh Ahmad Kutty, a senior lecturer and an Islamic scholar at the Islamic Institute of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, states:
There is nothing in the sources or fiqh (jurisprudence) placing a number on kissing mahrams.
A husband and wife are allowed to kiss each other without any inhibition as long as they do so in the privacy of their homes.
As for doing this with mahrams (unmarriageable relatives), they can kiss on the cheek occasionally, especially when they visit each other or arrive from a journey, etc.
We are told that the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) would kiss his daughter Fatimah whenever she visited him, or he visited her.
So, there is nothing objectionable about it.
If the father can be believed, and he claims that someone is his own son or daughter, then they are considered as blood relations with his other children. DNA can be a valid ground in proving the paternity.
Almighty Allah knows best.
Editor’s note: This fatwa is from Ask the Scholar’s archive and was originally published at an earlier date.