Need advice on adopting a child in the US
I'm a Muslim woman of Turkish/Egyptian heritage and my husband is an observant revert to Islam of Irish/English heritage. We live in New York in the US and we are childless. We are unable to have children of our own and I suppose we never will. We are seeking a child to adopt ASAP.
We are both educated, and the child will have a wonderful Islamic upbringing, Inshallah. I hope that someone will be able to help us. We tried the usual way of going through agencies, but they are not very willing to adopt out to Muslims, though they use other excuses to turn us down.
Thank you for reading this and happy Eid to all.
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As-salaamu alaikum!
I'm American, married to a Turkish man. We are in the process of being licensed as foster/adoptive parents.
Have you considered working with county agencies? They tend to be more open than a lot of private agencies which are often religiously affiliated. If you work through a public agency, you would be asked to consider older children as well as the little ones. You could also consider being a foster parent with the option of adopting if a child you were fostering became available for adoption. If you work within that environment long enough, you will also know many other foster parents who know that you ultimately want to adopt. Through that network, you could be more likely to find people who want to give their children up for adoption voluntarily and you could do a private adoption. I personally know several people who just had their name out there in the community and adopted children who were healthy newborns.
I have a vague idea that NYC has a Muslim social services agency. They might be able to steer you in a direction that works for you.
I wish you all the best in your journey,
Emily
Assalamu'alaikum Sister,
Sister Emily has given you very good advice. That is the option that I was going to suggest. Contact the local Social Services agency who is responsible for foster/adoption of children. Normally what happens is through the social services agency you have an option to either foster or adopt. There are so many children in the system that I doubt that you will have a difficult time finding a child. It is very possible that you will find Muslim children in the system also. The problem is that these agencies either don't keep records of the children's religion before they are put in foster care or they try to hide it so that they can put them any where they want.
You will be required to take a class that could last up to six weeks, depending on what state and county you are in. After you have completed the course you are qualified to adopt or foster children. My wife and I went through the process a number of years ago. We did not adopt but we became the legal guardian for a Muslim brother and sister for five years. They were in foster care before they came to us. Our plan was to adopt but before we could do it we were made aware of the brother and sister who were in the system. They were being bounced around from one Christian family to another. We felt it was better to get them in our home rather than wait for a child of our own. We already had our own children, we were just trying to help other Muslim children.
So My advice to you Johanna10 is to look into Social Services. Insha'Allah you will be blessed with a child.
Your Brother in Islam
Abdul Wali
IslamicAnswers.com Editor
Just few things to keep in Mind -
Who says Islam prohibits adoption?
Question
Why does Islam prohibit adoption? Adoption is a good thing. It provides a home, a set of parents, and a loving family to children who otherwise would grow up without such blessings. Why does Islam prohibit children who have no one from belonging to a family?
Answered by
the Fatwa Department Research Committee - chaired by Sheikh `Abd al-Wahhâb al-Turayrî
The question of adoption in Islam is one that is very often misunderstood.
Islam does not prohibit adoption. Rather, Islam provides teachings to allow adoption while, at the same time, preserving the integrity of the family line.
Adoption of children for the purpose of bringing them up and caring for them is not only permissible, but in fact a very good and blessed deed, especially in the case of orphans and foundlings.
The Prophet (peace be upon him) said: “I and the one who sponsors an orphan are like this in Paradise.” Then he joined between his index and middle fingers.” [Sahîh al-Bukhârî (5304)]
Adoption is certainly not prohibited. What is unlawful is to attribute one’s adopted child to oneself, as if there is a biological relationship. This is because Islam seeks to safeguard biological lineage and not confuse lineage.
Allah says in the Qur’ân about adopted children: “Call them by the names of their fathers: that is more just in the sight of Allah, but if you do not know their father’s names, (then they are) your brothers in faith, or your wards, but there is no blame on you if you make a mistake therein: (what counts is) the intention of your hearts.”
We can see from this verse that calling one’s adopted ward “son” or “daughter” out of affection without meaning it literally is allowed. The same can be said for an adopted child calling the people who adopted him “father” and “mother” out of love respect. This is perfectly alright.
It is lawful to bring up children in one’s house and to love them as one love’s one’s own children, but their attribution of those children should always be to their true, biological parents. If the identity of the child’s parents is unknown, then the child should be given a general attribution that originates with the child.
As Allah says in the Qur’ân: “...but if you do not know their father’s names, (then they are) your brothers in faith, or your wards.”
In Islamic Law, since adopted children retain their own family identity and do not assume that of their guardians, they may even marry from the families of their guardians. This is because the biological children of the guardians are not, in Islamic Law, the adopted child’s brothers and sisters, though they may have a close friendly relationship with each other.
Likewise, adopted children do not automatically inherit from their guardians who adopted them.
Because the adopted child does not receive a fixed portion of the guardians’ estate, the child’s guardians should make a bequest to their adopted ward. A person can bequeath up to one-third of the total estate to non-inheritors. Indeed, this means that, in many cases, an adopted child can receive more of the estate through a bequest than the biological children receive through their fixed and unalterable share of the inheritance.
The wisdom behind this might possibly be that an adopted ward may have less of a community support structure than a child who has a family. In any event, the amount of the estate that an adopted child may inherit as a bequest is left to the wisdom and discretion of those who adopt the child, up to one-third of the estate.
And Allah knows best.
Assalam Alaikum,
Although sister Emily and brother Abdul Wali gave great advice.
One option can be to look in your native country(I assume Turkey/Egypt) for babies and adopt a child from there. I am not sure about how long can the process take for adopting children from these countries but it was just a thought and wanted to share it.
regards,