The maternal aunt—the mother’s sister—has a stronger claim to nurse the child than the father does, provided the child has no eligible maternal grandmother as described earlier. The paternal grandmother is preferred to the father for custody; some maintain that the father precedes the paternal grandmother, but in my view that holds only when the father is not married to a woman unrelated to the child. After the father come the child’s sister and then his paternal aunt.

This sequence applies only when each prospective guardian is trustworthy, able to keep the child safe, and capable of providing for him. If a candidate lacks these qualities, she has no right to custody. In every case one looks to the person who will best protect the child and train him in goodness. This reflects the opinion—narrated from Mālik and adopted by a group of his followers—that custody is the right of the child. Consequently, they deny custody to an openly immoral woman or to anyone too weak, ill, or disabled to fulfill the child’s needs.

Ibn Ḥabīb relates from Muṭarrif and Ibn al-Mājishūn that Mālik arranged the order of custody thus: the mother, then the maternal grandmother, then the maternal aunt, then the paternal grandmother, then the child’s sister, then the paternal aunt, then the daughter of the child’s sister, and finally the father. In this scheme the paternal grandmother outranks the sister, the sister outranks the paternal aunt, and the paternal aunt outranks all remaining male guardians. The daughter of a maternal or paternal aunt, as well as the daughters of the child’s sisters, have no share in custody.

If the custodian is not feared to neglect the child or lead him astray, he or she retains custody indefinitely—until the boy reaches puberty according to one view, until his permanent teeth appear according to another, and, for a girl, until she marries. An exception occurs when the father intends to relocate permanently; in that case he is entitled to take the child over the mother and everyone else, provided she is unwilling to move with her child. Should the father wish only to travel for trade, that does not entitle him to take the child. The same rule applies to the child’s financial guardians: if they move away to settle elsewhere and the mother accompanies them, she remains