Fostering and Adoption in Islamic Law - Under Consideration of the Laws of Morocco, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates

Abstract

The importance of family and lineage runs like a golden thread through Islamic history, thought, and law. However, many children around the Islamic world are deprived of the opportunity to develop and grow up in their own biological families. With the aim to preserve blood ties as the only means of legitimate filiation, adoption is prohibited in most countries influenced by or based on Islamic law or Shari’a. For this reason, alternative forms of adoption have been developed as well as a model of legal fostering called kafalah. A kafalah enables children deprived of a family environment to be legally raised on a permanent basis by families other than their own. First, this paper looks at the legal framework of filiation and kafalah in classical Islamic law. Second, three modern-day approaches on regulating kafalah as a means of child protection will be outlined. We have chosen three countries from the Arab world with different legal-historical backgrounds, namely Morocco, Egypt, and the United Arab Emirates. The three countries have enacted child-specific legislation as well as specific legislation on the regulation of fosterage of children, of kafalah. We will look at similarities and differences among the three legislative frameworks and pinpoint benefits and risk factors.