This contribution revolves around children in Islamic legal systems from medieval times until the establishment of legal codes governing personal statuses in Arab and Islamic countries. As in other legal systems, according to the shari‘a minors hold a specific legal status which, on the one hand, ensures their care and protects them, while on the other hand setting limits and boundaries on their capacity to act. By presenting specific cases, different situations are explained in which the protection of minors is established and regulated through guardianship, custody and child care payments within families, as well as the institutions meant to protect orphans in accordance with the Law. Similarly, some case studies show us a series of situations which demonstrate the limits of childhood according to the law, by searching the jurisprudence for cases in which the age of majority was determined. Last of all, childhood within families is discussed through illustrative cases in which we see the relationships between parents and their children, pregnancies, wet nurses and breastfeeding periods, as well as the marriage of minors and arranged marriages, along with the opinion of legal scholars regarding such practices.
Kinship structures, family, marriage, divorce, childhood, Islamic law.