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Fatwa CenterNo legitimate tie of kinship between the adopted child and the foster parent
Question
I am a revert to Islam alhamduallah for almost 9 years. I meet and married my husband a year after I embraced Islam. Alhamduallah he is a pious Muslim, kind and faithful husband and wonderful father to our children. My husband and I are going through a very painful issue with my family. I was adopted as a toddler and for all of my life was kept from my biological family by my adopted parents. My husband and I have been building a relationship with my biological relatives alhamduallah and we have become close and cherish those newfound relationships. As the relationships have grown with my biological family my adopted parents have grown more aggressive and hateful. They have never accepted that I am a Muslim and have been physically and emotionally abusive to me. They have said in front of our children extremely hateful and violent things about Islam and are now insisting my husband and I divorce. They have worked for 2 years to try to accomplish this. They claim my husband will abuse me and kidnap our children because he is Arab. We are at the point where we fear for our physical safety as well as my emotional health their abuse is so bad. We have almost entirely stopped calling them and allowing the to our home because of the abuse. Is this permissible to cut ties with them? We tried for 8 years to keep the ties of kinship and we are afraid now. My adopted father in a rage I was going to the masjid rammed his truck into my car to stop me from leaving their home when I lived with them. He carries a gun with him in his truck wherever he goes. What should we do about this situation? We have tried being patient and kind with them and the situation has only gotten worse. Now that we are not calling they stalk my Facebook page and contact other people to find out what we are doing where we have been ect. Inshallah Allah swt will protect us. What should we do?
Answer
All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, is His slave and messenger.
Islam has deemed adoption prohibited. There is no legitimate tie of kinship between the adopted child and the foster father as per the Sharee'ah. Accordingly, a foster father has no rights over an adopted child like those of the biological father over his child such as dutifulness and other parental rights. Please refer to Fataawa 82371 and 130962.
However, the foster child should repay the favor of the family who raised him and treat them kindly. Allaah, The Exalted, says (what means): {Is the reward for good [anything] but good?}[Quran 55:60]
If you fear that this man would harm you and try to prevent you from following the true religion, it is incumbent on you to sever your relationship with him and totally keep away from him. There is nothing wrong with seeking the help of the concerned authority to protect you from his harm and assaults like the police, for instance.
Finally, it should be noted that the man who adopted you is considered a non-Mahram (marriageable) man to you and you have no legitimate tie of kinship with him as per the Sharee'ah. This means that you are obliged to wear Hijab before him and treat him in the same way as you treat any other non-Mahram man.
Allaah Knows best.
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