The Qur'an gives the orphan a permanent place in its moral vocabulary, and it does so from the inside. The Prophet Muhammad was himself an orphan, and the reminder arrives as a question put to him: "Did he not find you an orphan and give you shelter?" Shelter for a parentless child is described first as something God did, and then asked of everyone else.
Most people looking this up have a practical question behind it: what happens when a child who is not yours by birth comes into your household. 2:220 answers plainly, that "setting their affairs right is best", and that if you mix your affairs with theirs "they are your brothers and sisters". The concern running through all of these verses is the child's welfare and the child's property.
On names and lineage the Qur'an is specific. 33:5 says "Call them by their fathers' names", and then, where the father is unknown, "they are your brothers in faith and your kin". A child keeps their own origin and gains a family at the same time. Whether a particular arrangement in your country counts as guardianship or as adoption is a question for someone who knows your circumstances and your law; what these verses settle is the duty and the affection.
A large share of the orphan verses concerns money. The child's property is to be handed over intact, kept clear of your own, and left alone until they are old enough to manage it. That specificity is itself a kindness. A child with no parent to argue for them is the easiest person in any household to quietly cheat, and the Qur'an closes that door by name.
The reproach in 89:17 is blunt, and it lands on people who thought of themselves as religious: "You do not honor the orphan". Failure here is treated as evidence against an entire life of observance. For anyone weighing whether to foster, to sponsor, or to keep showing up for a child already in the extended family, the Qur'an counts all of it as the same obligation, discharged at whatever scale you can manage.
None of this asks you to feel equal to the task. A child who has lost their parents carries a grief you did not cause and cannot undo, and what the verses ask for is steady presence, which is within reach on most days. If you are raising such a child now, verses about parenthood cover the daily part, and verses about kindness the part that has to be renewed when it is hard.
93:6 — Did he not find you an orphan and give you shelter?
2:220 — on this world and the hereafter. And they ask you about orphans. Say: setting their affairs right is best. If you mix your affairs with theirs, they are your brothers and sisters. God knows the one who corrupts from the one who sets right. Had God willed, he could have placed hardship upon you. Indeed, God is mighty and wise.
33:5 — Call them by their fathers' names — that is more just in God's sight. And if you do not know their fathers, then they are your brothers in faith and your kin. There is no blame on you for what you do by mistake, only for what your hearts have intended. And God is ever forgiving, merciful.
4:36 — Worship God and associate nothing with him. Be good to parents, to relatives, to orphans, to the needy, to the neighbor who is kin and the neighbor who is a stranger, to the companion at your side, to the traveler, and to those whom your right hands rightfully hold. God does not love the arrogant and boastful.
2:177 — Righteousness is not that you turn your faces toward the east and the west. Righteousness is one who believes in God, the last day, the angels, the Book, and the prophets; who gives wealth, despite loving it, to relatives, orphans, the needy, the traveler, and those who ask, and for freeing those in bondage; who establishes prayer and gives the purifying alms; who fulfill their pledge when they make a pledge; and who are steadfast in hardship, in suffering, and in times of peril. These are the ones who are truthful, and these are the people of God-consciousness.
4:2 — Give orphans their property, and do not exchange the bad for the good, nor consume their property along with your own. Indeed, that is a grave sin.
6:152 — Do not go near the orphan's property except in the way that is best, until they reach maturity. Give full measure and full weight in fairness; we do not burden any soul beyond what it can bear. When you speak, be just, even if it concerns a close relative. And fulfill your covenant with God. This he has enjoined upon you, so that you may take heed.