The Care of Family and Orphans

By HRM Deborah

Something that has always been appreciated by me that is within Islam and that is the care of family and orphans.

Islam does not have the adage of what the United States coins as “deadbeat parents,” that due to divorce or absent by what ever means from the household; that a person is still responsible for the care of wife and children no matter where they may be.

It is also important to understand, that the care of an orphan is equally important and this is where Islamic law differs from laws in the United States for example, in that if one finds an orphan child in Islam; that they take the child into there home and raise them as part of there family with the love and care as any other member of the family and not by the strict laws found in the United States.

As for me, numerous times if I had been in Palestine especially during the war, knowing me; my home would had many orphan children to shower with love along with my own.

Even with my situation in the U.S., I have helped raise and love many children over time and have loss count because of the numerous children I helped care and raise so they would be less like “Latchkey” children and have a more normal life. To this day, if I meet one of these children from my younger days, they still tend to call me, "Mother."

Furthermore, the parent’s of these children where very happy that I was apart of there lives, also.

Nevertheless, I am also the type of person when I have been out of the home, to watch over children with the hope; less would be found on milk carton’s and on posters as missing or dead.

To with permission also from the parent’s, to help what appears as a troubled or withdrawn child to have a brighter happier life.

Even in our modern times with Islamophobia so rampant, I think back of how many American parent’s had practically begged for me to come and care for there children; so they would have a better life in the parents minds, to also what was said to me many times; that the parent’s knew in there hearts they would have happier children, that would learn how to be good people as adults.