40 Hadiths on Social Justice
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Hadith #25 – Justice Between Parents & Children
How do we uphold Islam's honoring of the parents without sanctioning injustice towards children?
Transcript
This transcript was auto-generated using AI and may contain misspellings. Mubarak ala abdika wa rasulika Muhammadin salallahu alaihi wa sallam, ala alihi wa sahbihi wa salam, tasliman kathira. Alhamdulillah we're getting back started and inshallah if we are able to maintain this at a good pace, if we get every halaqa done on a weekly basis from here until Ramadan, with the exception of two breaks, which I'll be traveling, then we will finish all 40 hadiths before Ramadan biidhillahi ta'ala. And if we've got like three weeks left and it's the week of Ramadan, then we're just going to do three nights in a row or something. We'll just have to do a series to wrap it up before Ramadan. But that's definitely the goal, to wrap it up before Ramadan. Alhamdulillah, just a few things. Number one, my wife, my sister-in-law, my wife texted me about my sister-in-law just now. My sister-in-law is in labor right now here in Dallas, so if I could ask all of you to make du'a that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gives her a safe delivery, that she delivers a healthy child and it's a safe pregnancy and that it's a righteous child as well, and that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala gives us patience for all the kids that we're babysitting right now while we're waiting. But please make du'a for her. That fades into the discussion that we have today, which is we're moving into the family realm of social justice. The last few weeks we covered financial transactions, and I just finished a lecture at Yaqeen's academic conference at Mass where I spoke about the Islamic social justice paradigm and how primarily it focuses on economic justice. But then when it comes to the family, it gets even more complicated than finances. And I'm going to mention from a theoretical perspective first, or not a theoretical perspective, but really a principle, a maxim that defines all relationships in Islam. And this will help us in understanding the role of government, help us in understanding the role within family, whatever it may be. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, or the Prophet salallahu alayhi wa sallam, of course, with the revelation of Allah,
always assigns clear authority. There's always clear designation of authority in anything, right? So the rights and responsibilities are so well defined within the Islamic text that it's hard to really go out of them. It's hard to find ambiguity, at least with the major things. So when it comes to the realm of family, when it gets complicated, it's not in regards to party A to party B, but it's really in regards to interference of rights from different parties. Meaning, how do I balance the rights that this person has upon me with this person? So most notably, parents and spouses. You get married, and if you want to be a good child as well as a good spouse, how do you balance out the responsibility that you have to your parents, and the responsibilities that you have to your spouse, and then the responsibilities if you have children that you have to your children, and the responsibilities that you have to your step-parents? So it becomes really difficult, and a person could really burn out. And there's no doubt that a person should try with all of those relationships to deal with ihsan, with excellence, to go above and beyond what is required of them. But sometimes that becomes impossible, and sometimes it becomes difficult to navigate those tensions. And then within a relationship, when one person is showing ihsan to the other, when one person is showing excellence to the other, and the other person is not only not showing ihsan, not only not showing excellence, but is actually abusing that ihsan, which is typically what happens in human relationships. One person tends to be very giving, and the other person tends to be very restrictive, or can even take advantage and abuse that kindness. Usually kindness is going to be abused. Sometimes it will be unintentional.
You might be taking advantage of someone and not really recognize it, because that person has never shown you any displeasure or shown you any dissatisfaction, but you might be taking advantage of them. And so the Muslim always looks to their responsibilities first, to the rights that are upon them. And at the same time, they try their best to deal with ihsan, with everyone that Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala has put around them. They try their best to deal with excellence. First we start off with the complicated terrain of parents and children. And we're talking about it within the context of justice. What are the rights of parents upon children? What are the rights of children upon parents? And children does not necessarily refer to children as in young children, but of course, even as adults, what are the rights of parents upon their kids? So we start off with this hadith. We'll start with the parents. And this is a hadith that's narrated by Abu Huraira radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu. It's in Sahih Muslim, that the Prophet ﷺ said, la yajzi waladun walida illa an yajidhu mamluka fayashtariyahu fayu'tiqahu. The Prophet ﷺ said, la yajzi waladun walida, that a person cannot repay his father. I'll translate it literally here. Walid could mean father or mother, but the literal translation is father. That a son cannot repay his father unless, illa an yajidahu mamluka, unless he finds him as a slave and purchases his freedom. So purchases him and then sets him free. The only way that you could ever repay your father is if you found him as a slave, you purchased him and then you set him free. Here is an interesting discussion. First interesting discussion. Walad, walid, literally would mean son, father.
Does it also mean son, mother, daughter, father, daughter, mother? Some of the scholars and the majority would say yes. Okay, but this is referring to any parent and child relationship. Some of them would say no because you could never repay your mother. That the Prophet ﷺ would not even include the mother, even in this context. That you couldn't repay the walidah, the mother, even if you found her as a slave and you purchased her freedom. But let's stick to the hadith as to what it's conveying here because the majority of the scholars do not take this as a literal hadith, even in regards to the father. Except for Imam bin Hazm and the Zahiris, the literalists. They say that if you were... because it could actually happen in those times. You actually could find your father as a slave and purchase his freedom and set him free. Could you just be like, alright, I paid you back, I'm done. Don't talk to me anymore. No. The Prophet ﷺ is using an expression to express that you really could never repay your father because this falls in the realm of impossible or near impossible. It's possible in that time, but it's near impossible. The point being that you cannot repay your parents. There's nothing that you could possibly do to buy your parents off or to repay them. And so the Prophet ﷺ, what's the expression that he's using? It's as if to say that until you acquire the commands of the entire existence of a person and then forego that graciously, you still haven't compensated them. So there's never a scenario in which you've repaid your parents, so stop even looking for it. Stop even exploring that realm. Stop even trying to make that a possibility because it's not a possibility. Now when we look in the Qur'an, we find two common terms that Allah ﷻ uses when He speaks about obedience to the parents.
وَقَضَىٰ رَبُّكَ أَلَّا تَعْبُدُ إِلَّا إِيَّاهُ وَبِالْوَالِدَيْهِ إِحْسَانًا And your Lord has judged that you will not worship except for Him and you will show nothing but Ihsan, but excellence, beautiful character to your parents. In other ayat Allah ﷻ uses the word وَوَصَّاه وَوَصَّيْنَا الْإِنسَانَ بِوَارِدَهِ إِحْسَانًا And we have ordained. وَصِيَة means what? وَصِيَة is when you will, like you entrust someone with something. أُوصِيكُم I'm giving you a very important message here. This is a trust and it refers to the will in the testament in the very technical sense. But in our everyday usage and in different things. أُوصِيكُمُ الأَفْسِي بِتَقَوَ اللَّهِ I could be giving وَصِيَة to myself and you to impress upon you the seriousness of something. I am not going to say anything about the word وَصِيَة I am not going to say anything about the word قَضَى I am not going to say anything about the word قَضَى I am not going to say anything about the word قَضَى It's very personal. So how do we take these two terms? This is something that some of the Mufassireen pointed out. Some of the scholars interpreted or at least extracted a benefit. قَضَى refers to justice. قَضَى is a judgment. Allah has judged that you worship none but Him, that you treat your parents only with the utmost excellence. And Allah joined obviously that respect for the parents with the obligation to worship Him alone. To show the seriousness and the gravity of not being respectful to your parents, not being loving to your parents. And to also impress upon you the obligation. So shirk is the worst sin. The worst thing that you could do is to not acknowledge Allah's oneness, to associate a partner with Him in whatever manifestation.
And so from an injustice perspective, right under that would be disobeying your parents or treating your parents in a way that's not befitting. But then on the other side as far as obligation, the obligation to worship Allah alone, the obligation to treat your parents with honor and with respect. So قَضَى refers more to justice and hukook and rights. وَصَّ denotes ihsan. وَصِيَّ denotes a sense of excellence. Like it's a very personal message. When someone gives you وَصِيَّ, you honor that وَصِيَّ because of your love for that person. A lot of times, like look, I'm telling you out of your love for me, out of your obedience to me, because of what I mean to you, I'm commanding you to do this. This is a command, this is a will, this is me telling you you need to do this. I'm enjoining you with this. So Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala uses various terms to employ this, and of course none of this is absolute or defined. It's merely a means of us extracting a fa'idah, a benefit from the different words that are used in the Quran. The point being that right under obedience to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and to the Messenger ﷺ, قَضَى is obedience to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Why does Allah join those two together? To understand that just as the right of Allah is so great that none can truly fulfill it, the only right that exists like that amongst human beings is the right of the parent on the child. That is so great that it can never truly be fulfilled. And even if you're able to make the claim that you are doing for your parents what they did for you, and it's hard for me to actually even mention this narration, subhanAllah, may Allah protect our relationships and have mercy on our parents and forgive us for our shortcomings with them. Umar radiyaAllahu ta'ala anhu was even mentioning to a man who was taking care of his mother
who had reached the point where she was like an infant, right, in the sense that he had to carry her, he had to clean up after her, take her to the restroom and those types of things. And the man is thinking to himself and he's claiming that he's fulfilled, he's done what she did for him. Like my mother used to carry me, she used to clean up after me, she used to change my diapers, she used to do all these things. Look what Umar radiyaAllahu anhu said, that you do that but at the same time you're asking Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to put her to death while she used to do that while asking Allah to give you life. So heavy. But even on the inside when you're taking care of your parents in their old age at times, maybe on the inside you're like, well, you know, it's only a few more years and you're just waiting for it to end. Whereas your parents were doing that for you and they were begging Allah to give you a long healthy life. So even if on the outside it looks like you are repaying, on the inside it's not the same, right. There is a special ihsan, a special mercy that Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala put in the heart of the parent for the child. That's why the narration of Ibn Umar radiyaAllahu anhu, the man carrying his mother on his back in Hajj. I've seen people do that by the way. I've seen people carry their parents on their back for Hajj. And you know, if you've ever been for Hajj and done the walk, it's tough. For a full, able-bodied, healthy young person, it's tough. Imagine carrying a parent on your back in Hajj. I saw it this year, I actually pointed it out to some of my group members. We were coming down from Jamarat. There was a man that had his mother on his back the entire time. And so this man asked, you know, have I repaid my mother? And he responds and says, not even for one of her shouts in labor. Not even for one of her cries in labor. You did not repay them. You cannot repay them.
And so this is why Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala is teaching us, and the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam through this hadith is teaching us, that it's not a matter of just you do this and I do that. And you can claim that at some point you've given to your parents an equal amount of what they've given to you, whether that's in the financial sense or in the sense of service, because there's something about that relationship and you don't ever get to claim that you've repaid that person. So that's why Ihsan. You go above and beyond for your parents as much as you can. And you show them that respect and that special treatment. And it's beyond just justice. It's more than that. It's more than that. And how does that Ihsan manifest itself? You know, it's a matter of showing that love and showing that importance, that that importance has never decreased in a person's life. Zayn al-Abideen, Ali ibn Hussain, the great grandson of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, when he used to eat with his mother, for example, this is not about haqoq, rights. When he'd serve the food, he wouldn't eat until she ate first. That's Ihsan. Why, he said, because I don't want to touch something that you want to eat. I'm going to wait for you to eat and then I'll eat from it. Because when I was a child, you know, you just attack the food. Your mother gives you what you prefer and she saves whatever is left for herself. The very famous hadith of Aisha, radiallahu anha, where the woman earned Jannah. When she had, when Aisha gave her sadaqah, gave her three dates, and so one for her and then her two kids. So she gave the two dates to her kids and then she was about to eat and her kids were still hungry. So she tore that, or she split that date into two and then she gave it to her two kids. And Aisha told the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, and the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, Allah entered her into Jannah because of that. She earned paradise by that. And so when he would eat with his mother, he wouldn't touch the food because he'd say,
you know, I don't want to touch it because I don't want to put my hand on something that you want to eat. So I'll wait until you eat and then I'll eat. Now is that a ruling in Islam? No, it's not a ruling in Islam. If you eat with your parents, if you go out to eat, you know, take them out to a restaurant, you don't have to sit there and, you know, wait for them to finish their food and then you touch the food. But it was just a matter of expressing a special type of ihsan, a special type of love for the parent. Imam Ahmed, Rahimahullah, and this is a very significant one because if someone cuts off the lecture right after this narration, they could really abuse their kids with it. So I'm going to say right now, this is a very unique circumstance. Imam Ahmed, Rahimahullah, did not get married until his mother passed away at the age of 40 years old. Does that mean you should wait until your parents passed away to get married? No, Imam Ahmed had a special circumstance. His mother was a single mother. She gave her all to him. She struggled and strove so much to take care of him. I mean, she toiled in every way. So Imam Ahmed did not feel like he could properly balance. Does that mean that it's a ruling in Islam that if you have a single mother, you have a parent, you should wait? No, actually the general ruling is to get married when you have the means to get married. But it's meant to convey a certain type of ihsan, a certain type of excellence that the righteous had for their parents. And by the way, Subhanallah, I find this significant. Imam Ahmed, Rahimahullah, he and his wife, Umm Salih, he was married for 30 years after that. He passed away at the age of 77. And his wife, Umm Salih, when she passed away when he was 70, he actually said, he said, I can't remember ever having an argument with her. Like, we never fought. So he honored his mother and then he honored his wife. That transition, it didn't lead to him treating his wife badly. It actually was a special type of qadr, a special type of recognition and honor that then translated itself in the way he would treat his wife after he got married.
So these are things that convey ihsan. They're meant to extol the rights of the parents upon us. And what if you, you know, well you could say, well look, Imam Ahmed's mom was awesome. Different. Zain al-Abideen's mother was great. Or, you know, their parents were different than our parents. So it's a different type of exaggeration. But this is the utility of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala not mentioning any conditions. Wa bilwali daini ihsana, that you treat them with ihsan. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala doesn't say if you had good parents you treat them with ihsan. Allah says you treat them with ihsan because they're your parents. So that does away with the, well, this, this, this and that. Which usually is more, you know, when a person starts to look back and say you never did this, you never did that, it's usually more of selective memory rather than an accurate representation of what happened in the relationship between the parents and the children. So justice is God ordained. This is Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala judging that. Wa qadaa rabbuka alla ta'bidu illa iyaa wa bilwali daini ihsana. So we'll just summarize these two verses and then we'll move on to the children. I'm sure the parents have already cut off the lecture at this point. Don't want to hear anything else. Wa qadaa rabbuka alla ta'bidu illa iyaa wa bilwali daini ihsana. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says in Surah Al-Israa, your Lord has judged that you do not worship except for Him and that you show your parents only the best level, the greatest level of excellence and ihsan. And then Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, imma yablughanna indaka al-kibar. Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says, if they reach old age with you. Ahaduhuma aw kilahuma. So one of them, you're blessed to have one parent reach old age or both of them reach old age amongst you. And you can sort of start with that. The scholars mention here that if your parents reach old age in your lifetime,
that's a ni'ma and a blessing from Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, not a curse. An opportunity for you to enter into Jannah. That is a ticket to paradise right there. If you were blessed to have parents that reached an old age in your lifetime, meaning you became an adult and where you could properly understand what they've done for you or the rights that they have upon you, and they've reached old age. Indak. Thanks tokslam.org Subhanallah, it already denotes that you're taking care of them. You're not abandoning them. You're not neglecting them. You're not allowing, you know, in this hyper narcissistic individualistic society, how many elder parents die alone, completely alone, barely hear from their children? Right? Completely put away because it's all checks and balances. Is he fed? Is he taken? Okay. It doesn't work that way. If one of them reaches old age in your lifetime, or both of them, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala starts, He first mentions, Fala takul lahuma uf. Don't ever show, don't ever say to them, or roll your eyes or show any displeasure. Why? Because especially, you know, subhanallah, Allah is talking about when your parents get old. Because that's when you could start to get impatient with them. For whatever reason, right? When they start to get old. When you're young, it's like, don't even think about it. And when you're old, even at that point, when it might seem like they're becoming burdensome, or it becomes heavier, more unreasonable, and things of that sort, don't you ever dare say, or express displeasure that you have to serve them. Because your parents did not say, they took care of you. Right? So don't you ever even say, show disgust, roll your eyes, whatever it is, or displeasure. Wala tanharhuma. Don't make them feel repelled. You know, you talk about Islam recognizes emotional rights.
You could be fulfilling the physical. Again, you could be checking off the balance sheet, but you're making someone feel repelled. Right? You're blocking them out. Wala tanharhuma. Don't block them out. Don't repel them. You know, it's the same language that Allah uses with the orphan. SubhanAllah, in Surah Al-Duha, Allah uses that language with the orphan. Right? Don't repel them. Don't make them feel like they're a burden on you. Don't make them feel like you don't want them around, that you're writing off your checks, and you're doing what you have to do. And Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala says, replace that with, Wa kullahuma qawlan kareema. Speak to them only with dignifying words, honorable, generous words. So you compare this, SubhanAllah, the first effect of speaking kareem in a way that's generous is to dignify that person. Right? Karam starts off with dignity, to make that person feel dignified. So if you have a five-minute conversation with your parents, and you're already raising your voice and making them feel like they don't know what they're talking about, or neglecting them, you're not dignifying them. It's not just kind words, dignifying words of generosity. You can't honor them if you're deriding them with your words. So dignifying words, not, you know, showing them complete honor, that they always maintain that place in your eyes no matter what happens to them. And Allah Subhanahu wa ta'ala says, Wa khfid lahumma janahat dhul minal rahma. And show complete powerlessness in front of them. Which means, Wa khfid lahumma janahat dhul minal rahma. To lower to them, to lower yourself in humility out of mercy. Lowering yourself, showing subordinance no matter what. Showing that humility and expressing that no matter how old they get, no matter how demanding they get, whatever it may be, constantly showing that humility.
The greatest example of this is the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam when he sees a woman who raised him and who took care of him. And the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, when he would recognize those women, because he didn't see his mother as an adult, his mother died when he was six, and his father died before he passed away. But when the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam saw Alim al-Sa'di as an adult, or when he saw Umm Ayman Baraka, may Allah be pleased with them all, and when he saw the women who nursed the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam, who took care of him, how did the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam act? Even as the head of state, even as the most important man in the Ummah, suddenly the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam humbled himself like a child in his 60s to these women, in the way that he would serve these women, in the way that he would treat them, in the way that he would act towards them. So to always show that complete love and that complete mercy and that humility when you treat them. So this is on the right perspective, and I'm going obviously more quicker because of the time that we have. And finally Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la says, وَوَصَيْنَ الْإِنسَانَ بِوَالِدَهِ إِحْسَانًا حَمَلَتْهُ أُمُّهُ كُرْهَا وَوَضَعَتْهُ كُرْهَا وَحَمْلُهُ وَفِي صَالُهُ ثَلَاثُونَ الشَّهْرَةِ Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la mentions in Suratul Ahqaf, And We enjoined upon man to treat his parents with excellence. His mother carried him, and Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la specifies the mother, carried him, gave birth to him, and nursed him and raised him in pain. And Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la recognizes that pain. So that shows that there is priority even amongst the parents in terms of justice. The hadith of, أُمّك ثُمَّ أَبَاكِ Your mother, then your mother, then your mother, then your father. That does not mean that you honor your mother and dishonor your father. But you try to pit them against each other. Well, mom said this, so pit mom against dad and say,
Well, I gotta listen to mom. Because before Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la specified the mother, this is the beauty of the Qur'an, before Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la specified these things of the mother, Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la says, بِالْوَارِدَيْهِ إِحْسَانًا You have to honor both of your parents. And Allah mentions some of the specific virtues of the mother upon the child. What the Prophet ﷺ said, Your mother, then your mother, then your mother, then your father. As far as honoring and dignifying and showing that love. And this is obviously a flip. In Arab Jahili culture and the culture of ignorance before Islam, the mother was belittled. She was inherited by her child. Completely belittled. So now not only is she an equal to the father, she is honored beyond the father for what she has done. The Prophet ﷺ shows that full recognition, as Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la shows that recognition. And then one hadith, it's not a hadith, it's an incident with Ibn Abbas ﷺ, where a man confessed murder to Ibn Abbas ﷺ. He confessed that he said that, I asked a woman to marry me and she refused to marry me. And then another friend of his or another man married her and he got jealous and he killed her. He murdered her. Now he comes to Abdullah Ibn Abbas. One thing is the punishment for murder, which is that justice has to take place. But he wants to know if he has a chance of being forgiven by Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la. So that's one thing. Like, okay, I know he's got to go through a trial, he's got to go through a punishment, but will I ever enter Jannah? I was caught in a moment of anger and I messed up really, really badly. Do I ever have a chance at paradise? And he said, Ummuqa Hayy, is your mother alive? And he said, no. So he said, repent to Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la with whatever time you have, whatever, repent to Allah as much as you can and draw near to Him as much as you can.
And the people around that witnessed that conversation. Ata said, we asked him, why did you ask him if his mother was alive? And he said, Wallahi laa a'lamu a'malan ahabbu ila Allah min birri walida. He said, I don't know of an action that brings a person closer to Allah than honoring one's mother. So from his tawbah, from his repentance, if he really, you know, this was just one of the actions he can try to start drawing closer to Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, go honor your mother. And when he said that his mother was no longer alive, he simply said to him, repent to Allah Subh'anaHu Wa Ta-A'la, try to draw near to Him and seek forgiveness. So, what does this mean as far as justice for children is concerned? Does this mean you are at your parents' disposal without any right to autonomy or justice yourself? Does this mean that you can be exploited and abused? And does that take place? It does take place. There's no doubt about it. And it's important, you know, there are things that are understood in the Qur'an and in the Sunnah of the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam when they speak about the nature of this relationship. You know, we live in the era of what about. I guarantee, I'm not reading the comments on the live video, but I guarantee you, what about this, what about that, what about this. If I write a single status, if someone writes something like, you should be nice to your wife. And then, what about this, this, this, this, this, this, this. Well, that's kind of understood that I didn't mean that if she hits you with something that, you know, like, it should be understood, but unfortunately it's not understood because we live in the what about culture. What about this, what about that, what about this, what about this. Like, you've got to have 30 qualifiers to every statement that you make. And if we live in a world of what about-ism, then no statement is true in its absolute sense. Almost no statement is going to be true. Anything you say has exceptions and qualifications and that's to be understood that Allah is not unreasonable with His servants. And the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam is not unreasonable with His commands to those that wish to follow and strive for His example.
So that should be understood. So I'm going to put that there, the what about-ism. Put the what about-ism to the side. Second thing, la ta'atanni makhlooq fee ma'siyatil khaliq. The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, you cannot obey a creation of Allah when they tell you to disobey the Creator. There is no obedience to a creation in disobeying the Creator. Obviously, that obedience is limited in its nature. Okay? Now, the last thing that I'd say here, this is a really important hadith. Really important hadith because it just, subhanAllah, it solves all of these problems. It is the ultimate qualifying statement here. The Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam said, innama ta'atuhu fil ma'roof. Obedience is always contingent upon it being reasonable. Obedience is always contingent upon something being reasonable. You can't place an unreasonable burden on someone and then mentally or emotionally abuse them or torture them because they're not living up to what you've placed upon them. So the scholars mentioned, you know, you can't make your child eat something repulsive. You can't make them marry someone they don't want to marry. That's, you know, that's something, you know, explicitly prohibited. And how many parents would guilt their children in many cultures? And how many parents would guilt their children to marrying someone that they want their children to marry but their children don't want to marry them? Can you imagine? A girl comes to the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam and tells the Prophet Sallallahu Alaihi Wasallam that she was forced into a marriage, that her father forced her to marry someone without her consent. What did he say? You're free to go. The contract never happens. Not, well, let's talk to your father and see why did he really want this to happen. You know, the guy is a good guy, just let it go. No, because it was a matter of studying justice. Like, that's not just. He might be a great guy and he might be a good guy for you
and maybe your father did it out of interest, but your father has no right to force that upon you. That's unreasonable. And so the standard had to be set, which, by the way, she ended up marrying the man anyway, but she wanted to set the standard. She wanted to make it clear that she had the right, whether or not, to marry that man. So, you know, there are things that are unreasonable in their ask. وَإِنَّمَا الطَّاعَةُ الْمَعْرُوفُ However, even when the parents demand something unreasonable that does not excuse you disrespecting them or treating them badly. What is the most unreasonable thing that a parent could demand of their child? You tell me. Become a doctor? No. You're really bitter about this, aren't you? All right. A lifetime of servitude? What's even more unreasonable than that? Shirk. If your parent told you, I will disown you if you don't worship this idol. Think about that. The parent said to a child, I will disown you if you don't worship this idol. Okay, no, don't worry about it. It's fine. She's cute. She can get away with it. If a parent said, I will disown you if you don't worship this idol. SubhanAllah, look at Ibrahim alayhi salam. Speaking to his father. قَوْلًا كَرِيمًا Check or not check? Speaking words of dignifying words and honor. Did he speak to his father in a way that was kareem? Yes. Did he treat his father well? Yes. Did his father reach old age in him and Ibrahim alayhi salam tolerated, you know, the package that came with and still showed him honor and love? Did he ever express impatience with his father? No. Okay. Did he say to his father, ufff?
No. He literally matches all the descriptions of the Quran of the way that you're supposed to treat your parents. How did his father respond? He tried to murder him. Okay. Because at the end of the day, shirk. Okay. Either you worship the idols or you die. That's as unreasonable as it gets. Did Allah excuse Ibrahim alayhi salam to talk to his father? And, you know, like after Ibrahim alayhi salam was thrown into the fire, think about this, and Allah saved him from that. Did Ibrahim alayhi salam go spit in his father's face before he left him? No. He left his father out of escaping his harm. He left his father out of escaping his harm, but he didn't treat him. He still didn't dishonor him. He still didn't say nasty words to him. There's nothing more unreasonable than that. And in the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, Sa'ad ibn Abi Waqas radiAllahu ta'ala anhu says, that when my mother heard that I accepted Islam, she flew into a rage. She came up to me and she said, Oh Sa'ad, what is this religion you have embraced which has taken you away from the religion of your mother and your father? He said, by God, either you forsake your new religion or I will forsake you. And I will not eat or drink or go inside my home until I die. I'm going to sit outside in the sun, die of starvation or dehydration until you renounce your religion. Emotional blackmail. That's tough. This religion which is built on honoring the mother and the mother is saying, you either leave Islam or I'll kill myself. And was she serious? She literally sat outside and the sister of Sa'ad had to force her mouth open to feed her.
So she didn't die. I mean, that's serious. And he begged her not to do that. But she went on with the threat. So hour after hour, Sa'ad said, I kept going to her with food and drink and crying. I mean, think of the position of Sa'ad. Sa'ad is a warrior by that. I mean, he's a strong man. But think of that humility and that brokenness in front of his mom. Like, Mom, please eat. I can't forsake my religion. What do I do? And Subhanallah, she kept on refusing. She said, you abandon your religion or I abandon you. He said, I said to her, oh, my mother, by Allah, this is tough, by Allah, if you had a hundred souls and each one depart one after the other, I still would not abandon this religion for anything. So when she saw my insistence, finally, she ate and she drank. Like, okay, he's not going to give up that religion. Allah revealed an ayah about this. وَإِن جَاهَدَاكَ عَلَىٰ أَن تُشْرِكَ بِي مَا لَيْسَ لَكَ بِهِ عِلْمٌ فَلَا تُطِعْهُمَا And if they strive against you and insist that you abandon your religion, then do not obey them. وَصَاحِبْهُمَا فِي الدُّنْيَا مَعْرُوفًا But then accompany them and stay with them and show them the utmost kindness and respect. Subhanallah, even them, even them. She's commanding Sa'ad to curse Allah. Allah is commanding Sa'ad to honor her and just don't curse Allah. See that? So there's nothing that goes beyond that. So yes, don't get forced into a marriage. Don't get emotionally blackmailed.
Don't treat your spouse badly because your parents don't like your spouse. Don't deprive your children of their rights. Don't do anything that contradicts, that conflicts with what Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has prescribed. But in that process, you still only speak to your parents with words of kindness. So you don't follow them in that which is unreasonable, but at the same time, your words should never reflect any form of disrespect. And if you, you know, sometimes a person, and this is an extreme example where there's abuse that's taking place and a person has to abandon, or a person has to actually seek protection from their parents. It's a heartbreaking situation. Are they sinful for seeking protection from their parents? No. They should not tolerate abuse and tolerate, you know, things of harm. But at the same time, a person still maintains what Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala has maintained. And this is another example, you know, a hadith, Anta wa maluka bi abik, the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam is saying, you and your money belong to your father. Al-waladu kasbu abi, the son is the earning of his father. That doesn't mean that a father could tell his son, you know, to give him all their money and not be able to pay their rent or afford their basic needs or to take care of themselves, right? This was an expression from the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam that a person doesn't deprive their parents from their wealth. If your parents are needy and you have the means to take care of them, then you're responsible to take care of them. But that doesn't mean that they have open access to your wealth, okay? And this is obviously, even at the time of death, the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam forbade a person as they're dying to will some of their money in charity. What does that mean?
You can give your money in charity while you're alive, but the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam forbade a person as they're dying to give their money in charity. What that means is that the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam is saying that at that point, that money is not yours when you're dying, it belongs to those that are inheriting from you. You can't wait until you're dying and say, you know what, give it all up. When you're healthy, when you're good, that's fine. And you can will one third of your wealth to charity, up to one third of your wealth to charity, but you can't wait until you're dying and then say, give it all in charity when you're dying, because it's no longer yours at that point. So there are rights, even then, financial rights, that the child maintains upon the parents, and the parents cannot just exploit the wealth of their children. That's not something that the Prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam allowed. Finally, there's the story of Umar radiallahu ta'ala anhum, with the father and the son, which is significant. A father comes to Umar radiallahu ta'ala anhum to complain about his child. I would hate, you talk about taking your son to someone to complain, taking your son to Umar bi'l-Khattab radiallahu anhum, that's like the worst thing you could do to your son. I mean, think about how intimidating that is. I'm going to take you to the head of state, the khalifa, who is physically huge. He's Umar radiallahu ta'ala anhum, not like physically huge. You imagine, and Umar radiallahu anhum, he takes his son to Umar radiallahu ta'ala anhum to complain about him, and he's basically asking Umar to discipline his child. And he says all these horrible things about his son, and the son looks at Umar radiallahu ta'ala anhum, and says, Ya ameer al-mu'mineen, alaysa lil walad hukook ala al-ab? Do children not have rights over their parents? Umar radiallahu anhum said, of course. He said, what are they?
So Umar radiallahu anhum said, well, and these were examples, he said that he should choose a good spouse, because that mother, that wife will be the mother of your children, so he should be thinking about that as well, as should the woman when she gets married, be thinking that this is going to be the father of my children, if we have children, so that's a haq of the child over the parents. So he should have chosen a good other parent, giving you a good name, because in Islam the naming is significant. You name your child something you want them to live up to. You know, Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, in the Muslim world, in many parts of the Muslim world, like people don't name after their companions anymore, that's considered old school. They got all these weird names that mean nothing. You name them after a person or a quality that you want them to live up to. It's a haq of the child, it's a right of the child. So everyone in the community, when someone's about to have a kid and they just open up some sort of website and they find the Arabic name that sounds prettiest, and like, is this name okay? You shouldn't be thinking, is this name okay? You should be thinking, what do I want this child to be? And I want them to live up to that name. So it's a haq of the child, it's a right of the child. And third, to teach them the Quran. To educate them. So basically, the son said, my dad did none of those things. Like, none of those things. Alright? Not so nice things about his mom. He had a bad name. And he never taught him a word of the Quran. Umar radiyaAllahu anhu looked at the dad and said, aqaqtahu qabla an ya'uqaq You disobeyed him before he could disobey you. Meaning, you deprived him before he could deprive you. You messed up. Okay? Now, Umar radiyaAllahu anhu didn't hand the son a stick and say, pop your dad in the face with it. But Umar radiyaAllahu anhu said, no, no, you can't come here with all these complaints when you fail to do what you were supposed to do. So there is such thing as the rights of the child. And if you think about these things,
these are emotional rights, this is the right to education, and again, the naming is more than that. I raised my kid to have good character. I invested in my child to have good character and things of that sort. So if I didn't invest in my child to have good character, then he has bad character, then who's to blame? Me. Okay? Then that's my fault. Alright? If I did do my best for them to have good character and they still turned out rotten, then I complain to Allah subhanaWata'ala. But if I didn't even try, which Umar radiyaAllahu anhu saw reflected in the way that he named his kid and just gave it no, you know, completely didn't care about that, then I have no right. And if I didn't educate my child or teach them about the Quran and then they act in complete opposition to the Quran, then it goes back to me. The right to educate, the right, you know, the right to invest in them and to raise them and to make them people of good character. So the child still has rights upon the parents, and this is something well established in Islam, and it goes beyond just the physical rights and things of that sort. Now, when a person becomes an adult, usually the tension with the parents is when other relationships come into being. Right? And that's where you have to navigate those things. That honor should always be to the parents, but that should not translate into disrespect of the spouse or deprivation of anybody else that has rights upon you. And subhanaWata'ala I'm just going to end sort of with this, with this lesson that I hope all of us will take to heart. I know this was a particularly long hadith, or a long halaqa that we did tonight. But, you know, as you get older, the fear of irrelevance on the part of the parents is real. The fear of losing relevance in your life. There's also, you know, sort of the teenage years, and when you're starting to become an adult, and you start, you know, you're trying to express ultimate autonomy, and there's trying to reinforce control.
So that's a tension. But then once it goes beyond that, once it goes beyond the annoying teenage phase, and, you know, you sort of move beyond that, the fighting part of it, it's a lack of relevance as a whole. So first it's a lack of control that then turns into a lack of relevance. And that's what the Prophet ﷺ was warning about, and that's what Allah Azza wa Jal, when He's saying, if one of them reaches old age in your lifetime, the greatest gift that Allah can give you is an opportunity to serve and to love your parents as they reach that old age. Don't look at it, don't look at it as a burden. Look at it as a gift, because many people would love to still have their parents to serve them. Allah ﷺ gave that to you. No matter what they are, what they say to you, what they do, unless again it goes into the realm of that which is unreasonable, where it's abuse and things of that sort, try your best to serve them and to show them love. One of my good friends, subhanAllah, when he accepted Islam, is, actually, sorry, I'll give you another one which is even better. There was a sister that accepted Islam in Louisiana, when she accepted Islam, her parents threw her out, and she used to serve her parents breakfast every morning. So when her parents threw her out, they were extremely abusive to her, what would she do? She would get up early in the morning, prepare breakfast, and she'd leave the house before they woke up. SubhanAllah. And both of her parents ended up accepting it. I mean, they were so touched and ashamed of themselves for how they treated her. It's not always going to end up that way. But she would have done her part anyway. Even if her parents would have said, your eggs stunk, and this was all off, and don't do this again, don't come back. She did her part. That's ihsan. Allah rewarded that ihsan in that case, alhamdulillah. If her parents accepted Islam, sometimes it doesn't happen. But the point is, it's a relationship governed by ihsan, and their rights children have upon the parents. And there's no greater...
This is the interesting part about this relationship. There's no greater investment that you have in this world than children if Allah gave them to you. There's no greater investment. Like, that's your akhirah. Because that's your continuation of deeds. If you can invest in that, there's no greater gift than that. Nothing more precious than an investment. And then there's no greater obligation, and no greater way to earn the pleasure of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala, than if you still have your parents alive, and you have the opportunity to serve them and to honor them. So your stakes are really in each other in many different ways. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala allow us to recognize the blessing of our parents. If they are alive, may Allah place us at their service. If they pass away, may Allah forgive them and have mercy upon them. May Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala guide us, guide our parents, and join us in righteousness and in favor, and never make us amongst those that wronged them. Allahumma ameen. Fadalallahu wa salamu ala nabiyyin wa muhammad. I'll take just two questions, and I'll let you guys go, and then we can take questions.
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