The Grand Imām of al-Azhar, Shaykh Dr. Aḥmad al-Ṭayyīb, has issued a response to the situation of a boy who was originally adopted and raised by Coptic parents, before being taken into the custody of the state, and declared to be Muslim. The statement, released through the al-Azhar Fatwā Global Center, explained that the opinion of scholars from the Ḥanafī school of thought had been taken as precedent, which states that a child found in a church by a non-Muslim follows the religion of the person who found them. This comes after several attempts on behalf of the adoptive Coptic parents to have Shinūda returned to them, citing a lack of legal grounds for the decision to convert his religion and rename him.