The Grand Imam of Al-Azhar’s care for children comes within his interest in sustaining family rights. His Eminence the Grand Imam participated in the forum on Interfaith Alliance for Safe Communities: Child Dignity in the Digital World, delivering the key speech to the forum. In that speech, he stressed that Islam has taken care of the children, advocating their rights from the early fetal stage, maintaining their financial rights, and assigning their share in inheritance that early. Islam also protects children’s lives, prohibiting abortion when the soul [of life] is infused into it [acquiring a potential living-form], unless its survival constitutes a genuine threat to the mother’s life. When a child is born to a Muslim father and a Christian/Jewish mother, Sharia assigns child custody in the event of divorce to the mother. This is in the interest of the child, taking into account the child’s attachment to the mother at that age.

The Grand Imam also made it clear that maintaining children’s rights is a major objective in Islamic legislation, along with the preservation of faith, life, intellect, lineage, and property.

His Eminence the Grand Imam stressed the need to take cultural particularities into account when enacting laws related to children. Eastern religious societies, for instance, cannot leave their children prey to harmful websites under the pretext of maintaining child freedom. Protecting the child from moral ills prevail over claims of children’s right to unlimited freedoms, as that would leave the children easy prey to more pernicious ills.

His Eminence also stressed that child dignity should be a major priority in international conventions relating to children.