JOIN US A day after the Supreme Court ruled that couples could adopt children irrespective of their religious background, Muslim clerics have said that such children would not be entitled to the family name or property.
The clerics from prestigious Islamic seminary Darul Uloom in Deoband said that there was nothing wrong in adopting a child and looking after him or her, but made it clear that such a child would in no way be called a “legal child” under Muslim personal law.
“There is no problem if anyone adopts a child. There are many examples in Islam where children have been adopted by Muslim couples to bring them up,” said senior cleric Mufti Arif Quasmi.
“Such a child, however, cannot be given the name of the family or any share in property,” Quasmi went on to say.
The “Shariat” (Islamic law) does not allow an adopted child to have any claim in the family property, said another Islamic scholar Nadimul Wazdi.
The Barelvi sect of Islam were of the same opinion. “The identity of such a child will continue to be known from his or her biological parents,” said Mufti Salim Noori, who is associated with the famous dargah (tomb) of Ala Hazrat in Bareilly.
The Supreme Court had on Wednesday ruled that Muslim Personal Law could not be a bar to adopting children.
The court, while pronouncing its verdict on a petition filed by civil rights activist Shabnam Hashmi, said that persons of any faith could adopt a child under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act.