The Fifteen (1).

1412 – Ibn Abi ‘Umar narrated to us, saying: Sufyan ibn ‘Uyaynah narrated to us, from ‘Ubaydullah ibn ‘Umar, from Nafi‘, from Ibn ‘Umar, from the Prophet, peace and blessings be upon him, something similar (2). And he did not mention in it that ‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz wrote that this is the limit between the young and the old.

And Ibn ‘Uyaynah mentioned in his hadith: Nafi‘ said: So I narrated it to ‘Umar ibn ‘Abd al-‘Aziz, and he said: This is the limit between the offspring and the fighters.

This is a good and authentic hadith.

And the practice is upon this according to the people of knowledge, and this is what Sufyan al-Thawri, Ibn al-Mubarak, al-Shafi‘i, Ahmad, and Ishaq say: they hold that when a boy completes fifteen years (3), his ruling is the ruling of men, and if he has a wet dream before fifteen, his ruling is the ruling of men.

And Ahmad and Ishaq said: Puberty has three stages: reaching fifteen years, or the wet dream; and if neither his age is known nor his wet dream, then the growth of pubic hair — meaning the pubic region.

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(1) An authentic hadith, narrated by al-Bukhari (2664), Muslim (1868), Abu Dawud (2957) and (4406) and (4407), Ibn Majah (2543), al-Nasa’i 6/155–156, and it is in al-Musnad (4661), and Sahih Ibn Hibban (4727).
(2) Its chain is authentic, and see what precedes it.
(3) The word "years" we have added from the copy of the commentary of al-‘Iraqi, and it does not appear in our sources.