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women and islamic law 231unfortunately, for far too long has been broadly understood as ‘toparents and next of kin’. But what kind of parents is meant here, thebiological parents, that is, the ‘birth-givers’, or the foster parents,who have raised a child without being the child’s biological parents?And who exactly is ‘next of kin"? The Arabic language distinguishesbetween w§lid (father and ‘birth-giver’, that is, ‘who begets a child’)and ab (father and caregiver/nurturer, but not ‘birth-giver’), alsobetween w§lida (mother and ‘birth-giver’, ‘who brings forth a child’)and umm (mother and caregiver, but not ‘birth-giver’). The dual termw§lid§n refers to the biological parents and the term abaw§n refers tothe caregiver-parents. If the biological parents have also raised theirchildren, they are considered as both w§lid§n and abaw§n. Seen froma child’s perspective, every child will have biological parents, andevery child that is fed, raised and schooled will have caregiver-parents,but biological and caregiver parents are not always identical.She [Mary] said: “O my Lord! How shall I have a son [walad] whenno man has touched me?”… ($l #Imr§n 3:47)The wife of Pharaoh said: “(Here is) joy of the eye, for me and for you:slay him not. It may be that he will be use to us, or we may adopt himas a son [walad an ].” And they perceived not (what they were doing)!( Al-Qaßaß 28:9)The distinction between natural parents and caregiver-parents isrecognised in both verses. As Mary was ‘not touched by a man’ shecould not become a w§lida, that is, the biological mother of Jesus. 13And since Pharaoh and his wife were not Joseph’s biological parents(w§lid§n) they hoped to adopt him and become his caregiver-parents(abaw§n).In the verse of bequest the given terms are, as we have said,li’l-w§lidain wa’l-aqrabÊn. Since li’l-w§lidain means ‘to the biologicalparents’, how does the verse refer to the caregiver-parents and otherswho feed, raise, and school the child, for example, the wet nurse orthe dry nurse or relatives who have fostered the child for a certain13How does the verse indicate this by employing walad—child? That is, how doesthis imply the existence of the nonbiological mother Mary (umm)? MS adds that theverses about Jesus and Mary show that, when the boy Jesus was about to be conceivedby Mary, his mother is referred to in the text as w§lida (because she was thenunder the impression that she would be the biological mother of Jesus), but when Jesuswas an adult and all the details of his perception were made clear to Mary, the versesrefer to Jesus as Ibn Maryam, implying that she was his umm, not his w§lida.