Adoption is allowed in Islam, but the terminology is different than the way the western world understands adoption. Their faith encourages taking in orphans, raising them, and loving them. However, even if the child is adopted in at birth, the child shall not take the parents’ last name. At age of puberty the customs of modesty required of men and women in front of strangers must take place in the adoptive home; and marriage among the adopted and adoptive family members is perfectly acceptable.
Guidance for Islams regarding adoption is found in the Qur’an. For example, adopted children’s inheritance comes from their biological families rather than their adoptive families. And adoptive families serve merely as trustees for the adopted child’s inheritance from his/her biological family. The rules emphasize that the adoptive family does not take the place of the biological family. They are simply custodians of the adopted child.
