Answer
Based on official Jordanian legal texts
Li'an (mutual imprecation) is an exceptional Sharia procedure, regulated by Islamic jurisprudence and adopted in the personal-status framework, used by a husband who seeks to deny the lineage of a child born on his marital bed without other proof of his claim. It takes place before the Sharia judge through prescribed oaths and steps.
Its general procedural shape
Li'an consists of solemn reciprocal oaths before the judge: the husband swears, in prescribed formulas, to the truth of his denial of the child; the wife swears counter-oaths that he lies. It is a grave procedure deliberately designed as a final, maximally serious gateway — not an easy avenue of denial.
Its conditions and limits
- A subsisting marriage (or one treated as such under the detailed rules).
- Immediate initiative to deny, before any express or implied acknowledgment of the child.
- Performance before the judge with the prescribed formulas and procedure — nothing done outside court counts as li'an.
- Throughout, the court verifies and assesses, and may take account of medical expertise within its examination.
Its effects
Where li'an is completed with its conditions met, it produces its legal effects — most notably: severance of the child's lineage from the husband with its consequences (inheritance and maintenance on his side), and separation between the spouses as the law prescribes, while the child's lineage from the mother and the rights on her side remain.
Its place today
Li'an is by nature rarely applied, and rarer still as technical evidence has advanced — yet it remains the governing Sharia framework for denying the lineage of a child of the marital bed. Anyone contemplating this route, or confronted with it, is dealing with family law's most consequential terrain; there is no substitute for a specialized lawyer examining the case in full detail.
This is a general answer based on available Jordanian legal sources and does not replace advice from a specialized lawyer in an actual dispute.