A Muslim Family’s Journey Through Foster Care and Adoption

What they wish they had known, what the journey demanded, and how it transformed their understanding of family.

Editor’s note: This account is based on an extensive interview with a Muslim couple in the United States who have experience with both foster care and adoption. To protect the privacy of the children, their birth families, and the adoptive family, all names are pseudonyms. Locations, ages, timelines, and certain nonessential circumstances have also been changed or generalized. The substantive experiences described here are authentic.

The couple’s responses have been edited, condensed, and reorganized for clarity and length. Their experience is personal and should not be understood as legal, clinical, or religious advice. Foster-care and adoption procedures, benefits, timelines, and requirements vary by state and individual case. Questions involving Islamic rulings should be referred to the scholar-reviewed Islamic Q&A on this website.

For this story, we will call the couple Ahmad and Sarah.

“We realized that what we wanted most was to become parents”

Ahmad and Sarah did not begin their marriage expecting that foster care and adoption would become such a defining part of their lives.

Like many couples, they initially imagined that they would grow their family biologically. But health challenges made pregnancy difficult, and they eventually found themselves confronting a deeper question.

Did they primarily want to experience pregnancy, or did they want to become parents?

“That question changed the direction of our lives,” Sarah explains. “Once we understood that we cared more about being parents than about experiencing pregnancy itself, we began exploring other ways to grow our family.”

At first, they considered private domestic adoption, particularly the adoption of a newborn. They also researched international adoption. Each path, however, came with different legal, financial, logistical, and emotional challenges.

Private adoption could involve significant agency, legal, medical, and birth-parent support expenses. International adoption could involve extensive travel, time away from work, changing agreements between countries, and eligibility rules connected to nationality and citizenship.

They pursued one private adoption opportunity that ended in financial loss and disappointment.

The experience was painful. It also forced them to step back and reconsider what they were actually seeking.

“We had to stop trying to control every part of the process,” Ahmad says. “We became clearer about what we wanted and tried to leave the path to Allah.”

Soon afterward, they learned about a Muslim family whose children needed temporary care. That situation introduced them to foster care.

It was a world they had barely known existed.

Foster care and adoption are not the same

One of the first things Ahmad and Sarah want interested families to understand is that foster care and adoption are two different paths with different purposes.

In foster care, a child has generally been removed from the physical custody of a parent or caregiver because a court or child-welfare agency has determined that remaining in the home is unsafe. The child’s parents may retain legal rights, and the primary goal is often to address the conditions that led to removal so that the child can safely return home.

Foster care is usually intended to be temporary.

Adoption ordinarily occurs only after a child has become legally eligible for adoption and the necessary court processes have been completed. In some cases, relatives or existing foster parents may be considered before a child is matched with another adoptive family.

The emotional difference between the two is significant.

A foster parent is being asked to love and protect a child without assuming that the child will remain permanently.

“You are offering a warm bed, safety, stability, and care while the parents work on what they need to do,” Sarah explains. “The child may stay with you briefly, or the process may continue for much longer. You have to understand that reunification may still be the goal.”

That can be difficult, particularly when a family becomes deeply attached.

But Ahmad and Sarah came to see attachment not as a failure, even when a child eventually left their home.

“If your heart becomes attached, it may mean that you did what you were supposed to do,” Sarah says. “You cared for that child fully. You did not hold back your love merely because the future was uncertain.”

A note on language

• Not every child in foster care is an orphan. Many children in the foster-care system have living parents or relatives, and reunification may remain the legal goal.

• Islamic law also gives the word yatīm, or orphan, a more specific meaning. This website uses the broader campaign title “Orphans in Our Communities” to call attention to vulnerable children while recognizing the important distinctions among orphan care, foster care, guardianship, kinship care, and adoption.

Their first practical step

Ahmad and Sarah attended orientation sessions to understand the different paths available in their state.

They learned about licensing, background checks, training, home studies, court processes, social workers, and the responsibilities of caring for children who may have experienced severe disruption.

They eventually completed the process of becoming licensed foster parents.

Their home study involved much more than an inspection of the physical house. They were asked about their marriage, childhood experiences, extended family, finances, parenting expectations, relationships, support system, and reasons for wanting to foster or adopt.

Friends and relatives were contacted for references. Background checks were completed. A professional visited their home and interviewed them.

The questions could feel intrusive, but the couple came to understand why the process was necessary.

“You are asking to become responsible for a child who has already experienced instability,” Ahmad says. “The system needs to know who you are, how you function under pressure, and what kind of home you can offer.”

After they were licensed, the possibility of receiving a placement became immediate.

In their case, they received a call almost immediately.

“You complete the training, receive the license, and then suddenly the phone rings,” Sarah recalls. “All the hypothetical questions become real.”

Becoming parents overnight

There was no gradual transition into parenthood.

They had to manage medical appointments, childcare, court dates, visits with social workers, communication with case managers, contact arrangements with birth parents, and extensive documentation.

Depending on the case, foster parents may need permission for decisions that biological parents ordinarily make independently. They may have to document injuries, seek approval before travel, coordinate visitation, and remain available for announced or unannounced home visits.

“You hit the ground running,” Ahmad says. “You become parents immediately, but you are parenting within a system.”

That system can involve many professionals, each with a different responsibility: caseworkers, judges, therapists, attorneys, medical providers, guardians ad litem, licensing workers, teachers, and birth-family representatives.

At times, Ahmad and Sarah found the process manageable because they were determined to learn. At other times, it was overwhelming because they did not yet understand how all the parts fit together.

They followed the training they had received, asked questions, worked with therapists and caseworkers, and learned as they went.

They also learned a great deal about themselves.

“The training was not only about the children,” Sarah explains. “It made us examine how we had been raised, how we responded to stress, what we considered normal discipline, and what habits we might have carried from our own childhoods.”

The medical realities of a new placement

Prospective foster parents may imagine the emotional responsibility of welcoming a child, but they may not fully anticipate the immediate medical and practical needs that can accompany a placement.

In one case, young children arrived in Ahmad and Sarah’s care with serious untreated health concerns.

One child was malnourished and suffering from a severe ear infection. Another had a contagious skin condition requiring treatment and careful attention at home.

The couple sought medical care immediately. There were emergency visits, medications, additional cleaning, disrupted schedules, and several sleepless nights.

The children did not simply need a place to sleep. They needed adults who would notice discomfort, respond quickly, remain present through the night, and communicate consistently with medical and child-welfare professionals.

“There was no time to slowly prepare ourselves,” Sarah says. “A child was sick and needed someone. At that moment, you simply become the person who stays.”

These details are not shared to frighten potential foster parents. They are shared because foster care should not be romanticized.

A placement may arrive with a bag of belongings, incomplete medical information, fear, hunger, exhaustion, developmental delays, or conditions that require immediate attention.

Families must be willing to ask themselves not only whether they have love to give, but whether they have the time, flexibility, support, and emotional capacity to respond when care becomes difficult.

Behavior is often communication

Ahmad and Sarah also learned that children may communicate fear, grief, confusion, and unmet needs through their behavior.

A child who appears angry may be frightened. A child who rejects affection may have learned that adults are not safe. A child who seems controlling may be trying to create predictability in a life that has repeatedly felt unpredictable.

One very young child in their care was unable to express what was wrong verbally. The child repeatedly cried near the front door and appeared desperate to leave.

Rather than interpreting the behavior merely as defiance or rejection, Ahmad and Sarah observed carefully.

They shared what they were seeing with the child’s caseworker and legal advocate. Through continued advocacy, the professionals involved came to better understand the child’s distress and need for connection with siblings who were living elsewhere.

“We had to learn to look beneath the behavior,” Ahmad says. “The child could not explain everything in words, but the behavior was still communicating something.”

This experience taught them that foster and adoptive parenting requires humility.

Love is essential, but love does not eliminate the need for professional knowledge. Children may benefit from trauma-informed therapists, developmental specialists, physicians, school support, and other services.

Parents must be willing to learn without taking every difficult behavior personally.

Attachment, trust, and emotional security

When asked what helped children feel safe early on, Ahmad and Sarah return to simple acts of consistent care.

They did not want the children to feel as though they had entered the home carrying a permanent label.

“Kids are kids,” Sarah says. “They want to be looked at, listened to, protected, comforted, and treated as though they matter.”

They focused on establishing predictable routines. They paid attention to the children’s health. They remained beside them during difficult nights. They advocated for them in childcare and school settings. They tried to respond to fear with reassurance rather than frustration.

A hug after an upsetting experience could make a difference. So could making eye contact, noticing a change in mood, remembering what a child liked to eat, or showing up when the child expected an adult to disappear.

Some children struggled initially to trust or accept comfort. That did not mean that they were incapable of love or connection.

It meant that connection required patience.

“Children do not arrive as blank pages,” Ahmad says. “They have already lived through things. You have to respect that and allow trust to grow.”

Adopting siblings

At one point, Ahmad and Sarah considered adopting children from a sibling group.

They believed strongly in preserving sibling relationships when doing so was healthy and possible. They also understood that sibling placement decisions could be complicated.

Children who are biologically related may have lived apart for long periods. They may have different levels of attachment to one another. An older sibling may have assumed a parental role. Some sibling relationships may provide security, while others may be associated with fear or traumatic experiences.

“There is no simple rule that every sibling situation will look the same,” Sarah explains. “You have to listen to the children and work with the professionals who understand the case.”

In their family, bringing siblings together required patience and intentionality. The children needed time to learn one another’s personalities and develop relationships that had not always had the opportunity to form naturally.

The couple also had to watch carefully for jealousy and insecurity among children already in the home.

“We had to examine ourselves constantly,” Ahmad says. “Were we giving one child more attention? Was someone feeling replaced? Was a child afraid that our love had become smaller because the family had become larger?”

They discovered that love did not have to be divided. It could expand.

Navigating Islamic questions

For Ahmad and Sarah, foster care and adoption involved not only legal and emotional questions, but Islamic ones.

They wanted to understand how to care for children fully while preserving the Islamic principles related to lineage, naming, inheritance, privacy, and maḥram relationships.

They listened to lectures, reviewed available materials, and sought to approach their family structure in a way that honored both the law of the country and the guidance of Islam.

Their first concern, however, was always the human being in front of them.

“We first saw a vulnerable child who did not have a voice in what was happening,” Sarah says. “Our responsibility was to protect that child and become an advocate.”

Islamic adoption does not require pretending that biological lineage has disappeared. A child can be loved, raised, protected, educated, and treated as a full member of the household without falsely attributing the child to a different biological lineage.

Questions involving surnames, inheritance, breastfeeding, hijab, seclusion, and maḥram relationships require careful guidance because circumstances differ.

For detailed religious guidance, readers should consult the Islamic Q&A section of this website and qualified scholars familiar with both Islamic family law and the realities of foster care and adoption.

“Our community did not understand this world”

Ahmad and Sarah’s relatives ultimately embraced the children as family.

But the extended family also needed education.

They had to learn what they could and could not ask. They needed guidance about language, privacy, birth families, court processes, and the uncertainty of foster placements.

They, too, became emotionally involved.

“They went through the ups and downs with us,” Sarah says. “They experienced the heartbreaks, the accomplishments, the changes, and the celebrations.”

Outside the family, however, Ahmad and Sarah often felt alone.

Few Muslims around them understood the foster-care system. Even fewer understood how the practical system interacted with Islamic concerns.

They encountered well-meaning people who treated adoption as though a family could simply request a particular child and receive one. Others expressed interest but did not complete the paperwork, attend training, or seriously examine whether they were prepared.

“Sometimes people speak as though adopting a child is like selecting something from a shelf,” Ahmad says. “But these are children. They have histories, relationships, needs, and rights.”

What the couple most needed was access to Muslims who understood both worlds.

They needed social workers, therapists, foster parents, adoptive parents, imams, and community leaders who could offer informed support.

They also needed a community that understood that vulnerable children were not only an overseas concern.

“There are children in our own cities who need safe homes,” Sarah says. “Some come from Muslim families. Some do not. But all of them deserve care, dignity, and protection.”

How the journey changed their understanding of family

Before foster care and adoption, Ahmad and Sarah understood family primarily through blood, marriage, and the relationships they had always known.

The journey expanded that understanding.

“We were not connected by blood,” Ahmad says, “but we were connected through faith, responsibility, and the trust Allah placed before us.”

They came to see parenting as an amānah—a trust from Allah.

They also became less judgmental.

Through the child-welfare system, they encountered parents who had caused harm, parents who were struggling with addiction or untreated trauma, parents who had repeated patterns they had learned in childhood, and parents who desperately wanted to change.

Accountability remained necessary. Children still needed protection.

But Ahmad and Sarah learned that a person’s worst failure did not always reveal the entire story.

“You do not know everything someone has survived, what they were taught, or what they are trying to overcome,” Sarah says. “We learned to recognize harm without believing that redemption is impossible.”

They also witnessed the effects of intergenerational trauma.

Some adults repeat harmful parenting practices because those practices were normalized in their own homes. They may not recognize unhealthy coping mechanisms, emotional neglect, or destructive patterns because those behaviors have been passed down for generations.

This did not excuse abuse or neglect.

It did help Ahmad and Sarah understand why healing often requires more than telling someone to “do better.”

When love did not come easily

One of the couple’s most honest reflections concerned a child with whom bonding was initially difficult.

The child had significant health needs, cried frequently, slept poorly, and resisted Ahmad’s attempts to provide comfort. The child had not previously developed familiarity with a consistent male caregiver and responded to Ahmad with fear and rejection.

Ahmad wanted to feel immediate affection. Instead, he felt exhausted, discouraged, and uncertain.

He worried about what this said about him.

“I wanted to care for the child the way I had cared for the others,” he says. “But the connection was not happening easily.”

Rather than pretending that the struggle did not exist, he turned to Allah.

He asked Allah to place love for the child in his heart and to place trust and comfort in the child’s heart.

The change was not a dramatic moment in which every difficulty disappeared. It developed through repeated acts of care: feeding, comforting, holding, changing, staying awake, playing, and returning after rejection.

Over time, the relationship transformed.

“They eventually became inseparable,” Sarah says. “Now it is difficult for him to imagine that there was ever a time when the bond felt uncertain.”

For Ahmad, the experience taught an important lesson:

Sometimes love begins as a feeling. Sometimes love begins as a commitment that is repeated until the heart catches up.

The effect on their marriage

Foster care and adoption placed pressure on Ahmad and Sarah’s marriage.

There were sleepless nights, urgent decisions, changing schedules, financial concerns, medical appointments, bureaucratic frustrations, and emotionally difficult court proceedings.

They had to communicate clearly about what they could handle.

They had to admit when one of them was overwhelmed. They had to distribute responsibilities and avoid keeping score. They had to protect time for their marriage even when the needs around them felt endless.

The journey ultimately made them stronger, but strength did not come automatically.

It came through difficult conversations, shared sacrifice, and a willingness to keep returning to their common intention.

They also learned that both spouses must enter the process honestly.

One spouse cannot carry the entire commitment while the other remains uncertain or resentful.

Interested couples should discuss:

• Whether they are considering foster care, adoption, or both.

• How they feel about reunification.

• What ages and needs they are equipped to support.

• Whether they are open to children from different ethnic or religious backgrounds.

• What support is available from relatives and friends.

• How childcare, work, appointments, and emergencies will be managed.

• How they respond to stress, conflict, rejection, and uncertainty.

• Why they want to foster or adopt in the first place.

The goal is not to produce perfect answers.

It is to uncover unspoken expectations before a child enters the home.

What people do not discuss enough

Ahmad and Sarah do not want families to enter this journey naively.

Trauma is real. Abuse and neglect are more common than many people realize. Children may arrive with behaviors that adults do not immediately understand. Systems can be slow, complicated, and frustrating. Court decisions may change. Relatives may come forward. A child whom a family expected to adopt may return to biological family.

Not every interested person is prepared to foster or adopt.

Good intentions are not enough.

At the same time, fear should not become an excuse for permanent inaction.

Biological parenthood also comes without guarantees. A biological child may have medical, developmental, emotional, or behavioral needs. Every form of parenting requires sacrifice and adaptation.

The question is not whether a family can guarantee an easy experience.

The question is whether it is willing to prepare honestly, seek support, continue learning, and remain committed to the child’s welfare.

Families must also be truthful about their limitations.

Ahmad and Sarah recognized that some children would require medical, psychological, or developmental support beyond what they were equipped to provide.

That recognition was not a judgment against those children.

“We wanted to be honest about what we could handle,” Sarah says. “A child deserves a family that has the resources and ability to meet that child’s needs. Saying yes to a situation you cannot sustain may not be an act of justice.”

They developed deep respect for foster parents who specialize in caring for medically fragile children, children with disabilities, and children approaching the end of life.

Every family will not be able to meet every need.

But every family can ask what responsibility it is capable of carrying.

Advice for couples who are interested but hesitant

When Muslim couples tell Ahmad and Sarah that they are interested but hesitant, the couple first asks them to identify the source of their hesitation.

• Is it fear of becoming attached?

• Fear of the child returning to biological family?

• Concern about trauma?

• Uncertainty regarding Islamic rulings?

• Financial concerns?

• Anxiety about what relatives or community members will say?

The couple encourages people to examine these concerns honestly rather than allowing them to remain vague.

For couples who have faced infertility, Sarah recommends asking a particularly difficult question:

“Do you primarily want the experience of pregnancy, or do you want to become a mother or father?”

There is no shame in grieving the inability to experience pregnancy. Adoption should not be used to suppress unresolved grief, and an adopted child should never be assigned the task of replacing an imagined biological child.

But a couple may discover that beneath the grief remains a deep desire to parent.

“That answer cannot be rushed,” Sarah says. “You have to sit with it and truly feel what you are seeking.”

Advice for single Muslims

Single adults may also be legally eligible to foster or adopt, depending on their state and circumstances.

Ahmad and Sarah encourage single Muslims to think carefully about the support structure surrounding them.

Foster care can be emotionally and logistically demanding. A single foster parent may need relatives, trusted friends, respite providers, community members, and professionals who can offer practical help and emotional support.

The couple believes that single adults should not be dismissed automatically. At the same time, no one—single or married—should attempt to carry the entire responsibility alone.

A stable support network matters.

The most important question is not simply marital status, but whether the prospective parent can provide a safe, consistent, nurturing home and access the resources the child may require.

Caring for children here and sponsoring children abroad

Ahmad and Sarah are deeply supportive of sponsoring orphans and vulnerable children overseas.

Such sponsorship can provide food, education, medical care, housing, and stability. It is a noble form of charity and may be the most appropriate path for many individuals and families.

But sponsorship and direct caregiving are not the same experience.

“There is a unique joy in holding a child’s hand and helping that child face the world directly,” Ahmad says. “Sponsorship is beautiful, but opening your home carries a different kind of responsibility.”

The couple does not believe everyone must foster or adopt.

They do believe that Muslims should stop treating care for vulnerable children as a concern that exists only in distant countries.

Children are entering foster care in American cities every day. Some are Muslim. Many are placed in homes unfamiliar with their faith, food, family culture, or religious practices because no suitable Muslim home is available.

The solution is not to criticize non-Muslim foster families who respond when Muslim families do not.

The solution is to build more Muslim awareness, licensing, expertise, and support.

What the Muslim community can build

Ahmad and Sarah envision Muslim communities in which foster and adoptive families no longer feel isolated.

That would require more than an occasional lecture.

Communities could develop:

• Networks of licensed Muslim foster families.

• Support groups for foster, adoptive, and kinship caregivers.

• Partnerships with reputable child-welfare organizations.

• Training for imams and Muslim chaplains.

• Access to trauma-informed Muslim therapists and social workers.

• Mentorship from experienced foster and adoptive parents.

• Emergency meals, childcare, transportation, and respite support.

• Scholarship funds for legal consultations and home-study expenses.

• Clear Islamic guidance regarding lineage, naming, inheritance, breastfeeding, privacy, and maḥram relationships.

• Education for relatives and community members about respectful language and confidentiality.

Not every family needs to become a foster family.

Someone may become a respite provider. Another person may prepare meals. A lawyer may offer guidance. A therapist may support children or parents. A donor may help a family meet an urgent need. An imam may teach the community. A relative may provide reliable childcare.

The responsibility can be shared.

The first step does not have to be dramatic

For someone considering this path, Ahmad and Sarah recommend beginning with reflection and research.

·         Clarify your intention.

·         Speak honestly with your spouse and immediate family.

·         Learn the difference between foster care and adoption.

·         Research the licensing and adoption processes in your state.

·         Attend an official orientation.

·         Ask what ages, circumstances, and needs you are realistically equipped to support.

·         Consider how you would feel if a foster child returned to biological family.

·         Learn about trauma-informed parenting.

·         Review the relevant Islamic rulings.

·         Speak with experienced foster or adoptive families.

The first step may simply be attending one information session.

“You do not have to know today whether you will eventually foster or adopt,” Sarah says. “But you can learn. You can ask questions. You can stop assuming that this is something someone else will handle.”

What they would want a child in the system to know

When asked what they would say directly to a Muslim child currently living in foster care, Ahmad and Sarah do not begin with a speech. They begin with questions.

·         How are you feeling?

·         What would help you feel safer?

·         What are you worried about?

·         What do you want the adults around you to understand?

·         How can we support you?

A child entering care may have had very little control over the decisions affecting his or her life.

Listening can become one of the first ways to restore dignity.

“We would want that child to know that we are here to help,” Sarah says. “We are here to protect you, listen to you, and help you through what is happening. You are not a case number. You are a human being.”

The most spiritually meaningful moments

For Ahmad and Sarah, the most meaningful moments have not necessarily been the court dates or official milestones.

They have been the ordinary moments in which faith became part of the family’s shared life.

·         Watching the children learn to pray.

·         Hearing them make duʿāʾ for one another.

·         Seeing them remember their birth parents in their prayers.

·         Teaching them about Allah.

·         Watching worship move from imitation to something the children began to recognize and love.

“There is something overwhelming about realizing that Allah allowed you to become one of the people who teaches a child about Him,” Ahmad says.

The couple does not describe themselves as rescuers.

They believe that Allah used the children to change them just as profoundly as He used them to care for the children.

The journey exposed their weaknesses, expanded their patience, deepened their marriage, transformed their parenting, and taught them how much the human heart can grow.

A colorful blessing from Allah

Foster care and adoption have brought Ahmad and Sarah joy, exhaustion, grief, uncertainty, frustration, and love.

The journey has not been simple. It has required paperwork, training, medical care, court appearances, difficult conversations, professional support, and repeated acts of patience.

It has also shown them that family bonds can grow beyond biology.

“You may think your heart has reached its limit,” Sarah says. “Then Allah shows you that you are capable of loving again.”

When asked to summarize the journey for the Muslim community, they offer a simple answer:

“The journey is worth it. You will grow in more ways than you expect, and it can become a deeply colorful blessing from Allah.”

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