Adding a foster child to health insurance

A question on adding a foster child to health insurance, in which Jordan's General Iftaa Department answered that there is no sharia objection if the regulations allow it, and that doing so carries great reward. ¹

The questioner asked whether a foster child may be added to health insurance. ¹

The Department answered that there is no sharia objection to adding foster children to the health insurance and education the state offers the fostering family, if the regulations and laws allow it, and that the family earns great reward, since the sharia urges care for such children. ¹ It quoted al-Nawawi's Rawdat al-Talibin that the rules on foundlings oblige the finder to protect and care for the child, and that jurists use the word hadana here in the sense of protection and upbringing. ¹ It said that easing procedures for fostering families, especially those without children of their own, is one way of protecting these children from neglect, and that if they have no means their maintenance falls on the public treasury, and failing that on the Muslims as a communal obligation, as it quoted from al-Nawawi. ¹ It closed by urging official bodies and citizens to work together to care for foster children and ease procedures for fostering families. ¹

Jordan's General Iftaa Department published this fatwa on aliftaa.jo as no. 3827, dated 9 November 2023. ¹ The museum records this text as a historical document attributed to the body or scholar that issued it; it issues no ruling of its own.