The Nature, Effects and Requirements of Child Adoption in Iranian Law with a Comparative View of Islamic Principles and British law

Adoption is an essential entity in current societies which in addition to providing the benefits for children without a guardian and couples without children, will have positive social implications and so it’s necessary to adapt its rules to social requirements. In this study, the nature, conditions and effects of adoption in Iranian law were reviewed with a comparative looking at Islamic law as well as English law. Data analysis indicates that in Iranian law, following Islamic law, there is incomplete form of adoption and despite recent legislative progress and development, the effects of adoption are not sufficiently and effectively provided in the law, while the principles and Islamic teachings show capacities to strengthen the entity of adoption by considering social conditions and requirements. In English law, on the other hand, a complete adoption system is applied, according to which the relationship resulting from adoption is fully consistent with the legal relationship between the children and their biological parents. However, in recent rules, a kind of incomplete adoption under the name of special guardianship has been identified in the law of this country, which has provided a dual system for taking advantage of different approaches to adoption.