Custody of a child (hadana)

الحضانة

Custody (hadana) is keeping safe, and raising in what suits, a person who cannot yet manage his own affairs; it is obligatory, since the child may perish or be harmed without it, and it becomes an individual duty when there is no other custodian. ^{1 2} It differs from sponsorship (kafala), which is the joining of liabilities, from guardianship, and from the executorship that a will creates. ^{2 3} It applies to a child, and to an insane or imbecile adult by general agreement. ³ The mother has the better claim so long as she does not marry a stranger to the child: ”You have the better claim to him as long as you do not marry.” ⁴ The order of claimants after the mother differs: the Hanafis put the mother's mother, the father's mother, the sisters, the aunts and then the agnates; the Malikis put the maternal grandmother, the aunts, the paternal grandmother, then the father; the Shafi'is put the daughter, the mothers' line, the paternal grandmother, the sisters and the aunts; the Hanbalis put the mothers' line, then the father, the paternal line, the grandfather, and the sisters, aunts and kin. ^{4 5 6 7} When male and female claimants stand equal, the female takes precedence. ^{6 7} The custodian's conditions include Islam for some, puberty and reason, trustworthiness, ability, freedom from contagious illness, soundness of judgement for the Malikis and Shafi'is, and a safe place. ^{7 8 9} A man must be a mahram of an adolescent girl in his charge; a woman must not marry a stranger to the child and must not keep him in the house of someone who dislikes him. ^{9 10} The place of custody is the father's dwelling; a custodian's removal to settle elsewhere ends custody for the majority, and the Hanafis draw a distinction for a mother's travel. ^{11 12 13} Payment for custody is allowed for the Shafi'is and Hanbalis, and in the preferred Maliki view there is none. ^{13 14} Custody lapses with a bar and returns when the bar is removed, and the views differ on its return after divorce. ^{15 16} The mothers' custody of a boy ends at seven for the Hanafis, at puberty for the Malikis, while the Shafi'is give the child a choice between his parents on reaching discernment. ^{16 17 18} Each parent has the right to see and visit the child. ^{19 20}