based on the consideration of meanings and causes, their impact on rulings, and their removal through them, and that this is something established in sound human nature, even in the nature of women. This description that the woman presented and made a reason for attaching the ruling to it was affirmed by the Prophet (ṣallá Allāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallam) and he arranged its effect upon it. If it were false, he would have nullified it. Rather, arranging the ruling immediately after it is evidence of its impact on it and that it is its cause." He said: "The ḥadīth indicates that if the parents separate and there is a child between them, the mother has more right to the child than the father, unless there is something concerning the mother that prevents her precedence or a characteristic in the child that necessitates his choice. This is something in which there is no known dispute, and the Caliph of the Messenger of Allāh (ṣallá Allāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallam) judged accordingly for ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb..." He referred by saying: "something that prevents her precedence" to the condition that the custodian must be a devout Muslim, because the custodian is usually keen on raising the child according to their religion, and to be raised upon it, making it difficult for the child to change after growing up and understanding. It may change him from the natural disposition Allāh created His servants upon, so he never returns to it, as the Prophet (ṣallá Allāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallam) said: "Every child is born upon the natural disposition, but his parents make him Jewish, Christian, or Magian," so there is a risk of the custodian converting the Muslim child to Judaism or Christianity. He referred by saying "or a characteristic in the child that necessitates his choice." to the fact that if the boy is discerning, he is given a choice and is not included in this ḥadīth, due to the ḥadīth of Abū Hurayrah (raḍiya Allāhu ʿanhu): "that the Prophet (ṣallá Allāhu ʿalayhi wa-sallam) gave a boy the choice between his father and mother." It is an authentic ḥadīth as I have clarified in "al-Irwāʾ" (2254). Whoever wishes to explore the rulings derived from this ḥadīth with detail and verification, let them refer to the book of the scholar Ibn al-Qayyim: "Zād al-Maʿād."