Orphan - in Religious Texts

In Religious Texts

Many religious texts, including the Bible and the Quran, contain the idea that helping and defending orphans is a very important and God-pleasing matter. Two of the most important religious leaders, Moses and Muhammad, were orphaned as children. Several scriptural citations describe how orphans should be treated:

Bible

• "Do not take advantage of a widow or an orphan." (Hebrew Bible, Exodus 22:22)
• "Leave your orphans; I will protect their lives. Your widows too can trust in me." (Hebrew Bible, Jeremiah 49:11)
• "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." (The New Testament, James 1:27)

Quran

• "And they feed, for the love of God, the indigent, the orphan, and the captive," - (The Quran, The Human: 8)
• "Therefore, treat not the orphan with harshness," (The Quran, The Morning Hours: 9)
• "So woe to those who do prayer, and are forgetful of their prayer, those who show off and deny help to other." - (The Quran, Small Kindnesses: 1-7)
• "(Be good to) orphans and the very poor. And speak good words to people." (The Quran, The Heifer: 83)
• "…They will ask you about the property of orphans. Say, 'Managing it in their best interests is best'. If you mix your property with theirs, they are your brothers…" (The Quran, The Heifer: 220)
• "Give orphans their property, and do not substitute bad things for good. Do not assimilate their property into your own. Doing that is a serious crime." (The Quran, The Women: 2)
• "Keep a close check on orphans until they reach a marriageable age, then if you perceive that they have sound judgement hand over their property to them..." (The Quran, The Women: 6)