Within Islamic law, there is a doctrine known as Hadana that instructs Muslims how to deal with issues regarding a child's physical custody- what we in Nigeria may call possession of a child. Unlike in Nigerian civil law, this doctrine automatically grants physical custody of a child to the father.
Let's examine specifically what the doctrine of Hadana has to say regarding the possession of a child. For starters, if a child is born out of marriage, then if you are the child's mother, you would be able to have physical custody of your child if he is a male up to the child's seventh birthday.
On the other hand, if your child is a girl, you would be entitled to your daughter's physical custody until the age of puberty. Typically if your ex-husband were not able to take physical custody of your child at either age seven/the age of puberty, his relatives would be able to step in and take possession in his absence.
As the natural guardian of your child, your ex-husband holds all the cards in terms of physical custody of your child. He would have the sole right to determine whether your child can travel internationally by obtaining a passport, where he or she would go to school, and other issues like this. In Nigerian divorces, parents will typically share in these rights and, in many cases, have an equal say in the rights and duties of parenting a child after divorce.
You, as the mother of the child, can lose physical custody of the child before the aforementioned ages in a few different ways. For starters, if it is determined by an Imam (a religious leader within Islam) that you are untrustworthy as a parent, then your physical custody rights to your child could be stripped.
Secondly, if it is determined that you are not competent to promote the religious faith of your child or to encourage their active following of Islam, then your physical custody rights may be in jeopardy. Finally, you may lose custody rights to your child if you remarry from outside of your husband's family during this time period before your child turns the age at which time he or she would go to live with their father.
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