Foster Care: a Question of Faith

As students, when moving to University, most of us face a realisation as to how much is actually done for us! I for one, realised how much I took for granted: from washing the weekly Everest-high pile of washing in the corner of my student room and the pennaciline-growing dirty dishes pushed to one side of the kitchen work surface until I ran out of clean plates! After a while, I realised how lucky I was to grow up with loving and responsible parents and it made me think of those less fortunate, those who are denied basic love and attention. And it made me think, would I be able to offer this to a child in care...

An Evangelical Christian foster carer won her court appeal against her local council after she was struck off the foster carer’s register by her local council in England, when a 16 year old Muslim girl in her care, decided to become a baptised Christian.

Gateshead council claimed the carer, who has fostered some 80 children throughout her life, had overstepped the mark by not stopping the young girl from being baptised.

Subsequently, the woman in question was forced to give up her farm house which she rented with the money she received as a foster carer.

Many have commented that the girl, who was in foster care, was too young to have made her own informed decision regarding her choice of religion.

At 16 – when one can legally marry, obtain a driver’s licence and an age where it is more than acceptable, even expected for a child to come to the decision of whether or not they are straight, gay, bisexual or other, is really so difficult to believe that an adolescent of 16 can make decisions over which religion they wish to follow?

Especially when it was also later revealed that the young girl had started looking into Christianity some two years previous to being placed under the care of the highly experienced carer – something the youngster testified in support of the lady’s appeal court case.

A concern shared by many however is that an effort should have been made to place the girl, and other children in such similar cases, in the care of those who are from the same religious/cultural background as the children so as to avoid confusion, distress and accusations of overstepping the mark.

However, this raises the question over why there are so few ethnic minority and religious minority foster carers, making it difficult for council authorities to place children in the care of those who are from the same cultural/religious backgrounds. It is often seen as a social stigma to foster care/adopt in ethnic minority families due to the emphasis on culutral blood-lineage and ignorance of the moral and religious merit.

Every year a total of 58,000 children are placed in foster care, and of these 10,000 come from Muslim, Asian, Black and Ethnic Minority backgrounds.

There is already a general shortage of carers for foster children, and the shortage for children from Muslim, Asian, Black and Ethnic Minority backgrounds is more acute and I believe it's time for these social groups to step up and engage more in the social care of disadvantaged children!

In recent years there has been some controversy on the issue of fostering and adoption. Confusion has prevailed as to the exact do’s and don'ts for Muslims that wish to foster.

The most famous orphan in Islamic culture is, without doubt, the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him. His father died before he was born and by the time he was eight he had lost both his mother and the grandfather who named him. When Muhammad's (pbuh) wife Khadijah gave to him a slave named Zaid, Muhammad freed the boy and raised him as if he were his own son.

Therefore, the importance of taking homeless children to care for them is well-established in Islam. The Islamic form of "adoption" is called kafâla, which literally means sponsorship, but comes from the root word meaning "to feed". It is best translated as "foster parenting". (Source: The Islamic View Of Adoption And Caring For Homeless Children by Imad-ad-Dean Ahmad, Ph.D.) As can be seen, foster care is well established in Islam as a means of providing care to children.

I don't believe the importance of fostering can be ignored any longer. Fostering allows a child to benefit from the care of a good home, while at the same time not losing his/her rights from birth parents.

In the light of this historical fact, Muslims are no strangers to the concept of adoption and foster care. In fact, they have before them lofty examples of such cases as the Prophet (pbuh) having been brought up as an orphan himself.

Finally, if we look to the first generation of Muslims, specifically, the companions of the prophet (pbuh), there was hardly a home which had not taken in and adopted an orphan child. This was a normal practice in the society of the companions.

Today, as Muslims in Britain, we should be leading the way in opening up our homes, families and hearts to those in need. For as the Prophet (pbuh) said: "Whoever supports an orphan from among his own or any other family, he will be as close to me in Heaven as these fingers are close to each other." And with this, he overlapped his index and middle finger.

How vital do you consider fostering as a matter and responsibility of Faith. And do you think you would be able to commit to fostering?