It is a well-known notion that Islamic law does not recognize the validity of the legal institution of adoption. In Islamic Countries, the legal formants, therefore, created other possibilities to pursue the interest of the minors abandoned or without a family: the kafalah is one of them.

In this essay, therefore, the author describes the legal solutions adopted by the North African legislators and the way the Western Legal Tradition reacted when it was necessary to deal with the kafalah. In this legal and cultural brew, it is found that, notwithstanding the unavoidable and persistent differences, there is a common path and a shared common goal represented by the best interest of the child. And it is in this function that the legal systems may find the common grammar to communicate and the legal institutions (kafalah on one direction, adoption in the other) may circulate over the national borders.