Discussion of the saying of Allah the Exalted: “And He has not made your adopted sons your [real] sons”

The author said: “Adiya' is the plural of da'i, which is one who is claimed as a son by someone other than his father”. Adiya' is the plural of da'i, just as agniya' is the plural of ghani and akfiya' is the plural of kafi. It has examples. Da'i is a fa'il form meaning maf'ul (passive), and its original form is da'iw with a waw, but the waw was changed to a ya for a morphological reason. So, da'i means one who is claimed. The word da'w (claiming) originally means seeking attention. What is meant by their being claimed here is attribution, namely that he is attributed to someone other than his father, and it is said, “This is the son of so-and-so,” when in reality he is not his son. Did Allah the Exalted make these adopted sons their sons by law or by nature? No, neither by law nor by nature. As for not by nature, it is clear that they are not sons by nature. As for not by law, here Allah negated it regarding them, negating it . If the adopted sons are not sons, neither by nature nor by law, then the mind does not turn to them legally. This word I am saying clarifies the weakness of the statement of those who say regarding the saying of Allah the Exalted: [Al-Nisa: 23], saying that His statement: is a restriction intended to exclude the adopted son. Because we say that the adopted son does not fall under the category of a son at all, so the mind does not go to him to the extent that we say he needs a restriction to exclude him. This issue was previously discussed in the chapter on prohibited women. The important point is that Allah did not make the adopted sons sons, neither by law nor by nature. In the pre-Islamic age of ignorance, a person would be claimed by someone other than his father. This man would be noble and of good lineage, while this adopted son would be of lowly status, his lineage not being of much value among people, or he would have no known lineage. So he would be claimed by this father for the sake of his nobility. Allah abrogated that because claiming a person as a son of someone other than his father leads to matters where everything that follows from lineage, such as prohibition and permissibility, inheritance, and maintenance, might transfer to this adopted son because he was claimed by this man. Therefore, Allah the Exalted prohibited that by law, because naming a thing with a name far from its reality causes the established norms to be overturned. Even the Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) said: . They call it al-'atamah, and it is when the camels settle down, but in the Book of Allah it is called al-'isha. So all things, if named with another name, might have their rulings differ. Therefore, the Shari'ah prohibited us . The word "sons" is a true interpretation, meaning He did not make them sons in a true sense.