Abdur Rahman ibn Yusuf Mangera – The Malicious Mother Syndrome Custody Issues
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Bismillah al Rahman al Rahim Al hamdu lillahi Hamden cathedra on
the uban Mubarak and fie Mubarak and it gamma your head Bharat Bona
Jacobo Jalla Jalla de Juan Manuel was Salatu was Salam when others
say you will have even Mustafa SallAllahu Taala I know you are
and he was like me he or Baraka was seldom at the Sleeman girthier
on Eli Yomi Dean Amar Bharat
dear respected sisters, it's nice to have you here today for this
annual puff to Paytm show everybody's mashallah very
excited, I'm sure mashallah, you've learnt a lot today. And
just the fact that we're with, among other sisters, that in
itself provides an environment that is worth attending nowadays
with having online lectures where you can actually listen to whoever
you want to choose whoever you wish to listen to, and then the
comfort of your own homes. The problem with that is that a
lecture is not just about listening to somebody, but it's
also about being in the correct environment, we benefit from other
people's spirituality, and brotherhood sisterhood in Islam,
that's a very important aspect. So in sha Allah, we ask Allah
subhanaw taala, for the best of this program, my topic today is
going to be not about any kind of a general topic. But my topic, I'm
just going to because take the opportunity today, rather, because
we have a lot of sisters, I want to really send this message out
there, it's about a very, very specific topic that particularly
effects women. The topic I want to speak about today is that it's a
very focused topic, very specific topic. And primarily, it is
something that affects women, or it's coming from women. And
mashallah marriage is something which is very important in Islam.
And that's why most people we see around us in terms of the Muslim
community, they're married. However, we're also seeing that
there's an increase in divorce. And there's many factors for
divorce, which, today is not the time to discuss. And today is not
the time to get into. But there's one destructive consequence of
divorce, which I want to speak about. So as I said, I want to
speak about something very, very specific. And I want to speak
about this, because mashallah, we have a lot of sisters here. And if
you know somebody who's in this situation, maybe or you are one of
these people, then inshallah you can try to make corrections and
amends about this, because it's really very harmful for our
community. So one of the most destructive consequences of a
divorce is actually the harm that is done to the children. And a lot
of the time, unwittingly, they don't realize that what they're
doing is actually harmful for the children by either one parent or
both parents. So it could be from either side.
However, because in the West, the custody laws generally tend to be
unfairly and I say this emphatically, and I say this, you
know, with with
particular emphasis that the, in the West, generally, the custody
laws tend to be unfairly biased towards the mother, and this
experience will have shown this, and you will probably be able to
support this by stories that you know, as well, it appears, at
least in the UK, that the government may be looking at re
holding the system, because I think they believe that in
England, the the marriage, marriage laws, divorce, marriage
laws are very old, and things have really moved on. And those laws
are very difficult to apply a part of that is the custody issue.
Anyway. So due to this, meaning the law is being unfairly biased
towards mothers and other factors, mothers are very easily able to
alienate their children from their fathers and gain 100% custody
100% custody rights for their children, and they can very easily
manipulate the SIS system for their benefit. Let me let me just
provide you the following scenarios, which I could say the
majority of which are in the local community, right, the majority of
which are in the local community, although there's some that I know
and these are people I personally know or Plessy know about. And
these are not just third hand stories, but these are people who
either hide most of them in fact, I think I directly know them. The
first person is a person he's in another city. He is he's he's had
children from an ex wife, they got divorced. And I in fact, I know
the wife's family in his ex wife's family. I know that family at
least I know some members of that family I know about the family.
They've got at least one scholar in that way family but this this
individual has not been able has not been allowed to see his
children for I think it's been at least the decades, over 10 years.
And this is really sad because his ex wife's family is a religious
family. They're linked to righteous people. They
He actually have at least one alum in their family, but they they
will not allow him to see that you see his children.
Person to Person two is a is a well known scholar of an
international repute.
Again ex wife refused to allow him to see that his I think two
daughters at least,
it was only that was for over a decade, if I remember correctly,
right, that was also over a decade. And it is only after his
daughters themselves turned 18 that they were able to reach out
to him themselves, I think initially without their mother
knowing. Because again, in this case, the mother is an ecobee. And
they're from a religious family. And this is over 10 years. Right.
Now, some of you may be thinking that these ex husbands must be
really bad people. Right? They must be child abusers, pedophiles,
and that's why somebody's doing this. But far from it, far from
it. They're not like that. And I can vouch for that. Right.
Number three, there's a person who who there's a person who split up
from his wife, right husband, wife, Anita, initially, they
agreed right on, they agreed that they would have joint custody of
the approximately 10 year old daughter. Soon though, the mother
started restricting her visits, meaning the daughter's visit
because now she's living somewhere else husband is living elsewhere.
The daughter is generally living with the mother but the father
gets to see him once or twice a week or three times a week, or
whatever it was, it was minority time was spent with the Father
majority was with the daughter anyway, but she was she she
started restricting her visits. This forced the father to go to
court because there was no way that they could have an amicable
discussion about it. Because clearly, this was the wife playing
playing something else.
Then the mother started emotionally blackmailing the
daughter by telling her when she was with her how lonely she felt,
because she said that when you go, when you're when your father is
alone, he's got his mother in the house. So at least there's two
people, I'm alone when you go now a 10 year old girl is going to
feel really sorry for her mother, even though you know, she knows
she must go to her father, it's just really playing with her mind.
She said, you know, at least your father's got home, his mother
living with with him, but I've got nobody on the way to school,
sometimes she would actually stop the car halfway or you know
somebody on the way and pretend to vomit, to show that she was very
sick. She would pretend to vomit. The daughter will obviously tell
all of this to the Father because she's very innocent. Right? But
slowly, slowly, it has its toll. The father notice that this is
completely traumatizing his daughter. And he couldn't do
anything about it, obviously, because he can't speak to the
mother. And nobody else is there to listen.
Eventually, what started happening is that the daughter, she would
want to go back quickly, she would want to return quickly. And
eventually, she would just gone stand by the door, I need to go
home, I want to go home. Right. And that was a massive marked
difference between how she was before and how she'd become and he
had not done anything to essentially spoil her. And then
eventually, she's refused to come all together.
They went to court. And I think the judge in this case did see
through the ploys. But I didn't know I don't know what's happened
since then, because I haven't spoken to the father or the mother
for a very long time.
Person number four, similar to the case above, very similar to the
case above. Initially, he would have, he would have them. And I
know this because when I was the principal of the mother, I would
see him bring the children, sometimes the mother bring the
children sometimes, but as of the last two years or so, he spent
over 20,000 pounds behind lawyers. But eventually, even though he may
be given custody, they can easily be manipulated by the by the wife,
and then he has no money left. So essentially what the wife does,
and the problem with this is that I've spoken to a lawyer about
this, right? who deals with a lot of these cases. And he said, what
happens is that it's in the lawyers interest, because that's
how they make money. So they actually tell you to they actually
tell the mothers that if there's a way you can have him attack you,
or have him flip out at you that you're going to be your biggest
evidence. And most, most husbands most men or even women for that
matter. If such injustice is actually done to them. They would
definitely flip out. But to be honest, the the strategy here
should be the wisdom here would be that you have to stay calm,
otherwise, you just incriminate yourself more because of the
messed up system. It's really biased and I know I'm speaking to
sisters because this must stop. Right and I'm speaking to for our
own good it's not
It's not because you know, I'm a man and you're women. No, that's
not the case. Right. So the fourth case is similar to the above, a
father spends over 20,000. Over the last two, three years, if I
remember correctly, he has not been able to see because he has no
money to fight the case anymore. Right. And basically, his children
have been poisoned against him.
Number five,
again, similar to the above, but what the wife you see, and I'm not
giving ideas here. But the wife used here is that the husband and
he's a convert Dispenza convert, and I know him because I've done
some work with him. Right, he's a convert. His wife used the
terrorism card against him. She said that he's involved in
terrorism, I don't know the exact word she used, or whatever the
case was. But he had a book because he has a Sharpie, he had a
book color under two Salic, which is basically a Shafi FIP manual.
It's quite a big, thick man who's got a chapter on jihad, and that
was used to incriminate him that he has those tendencies. Again, he
spent a huge amount of money to try to exonerate himself and try
to to be able to see his children.
Right, number six.
This is, again, somebody I know very closely, probably more than
anybody else in these five or six people, this person after he
started having problems with his wife. And
you see, what you have to remember here is that, again, it's not
about judging who's right and wrong in terms of the split up,
right, parents can split up for whatever reason, right? It's bad
to split up for bad reasons, and one of them is probably going to
be more blame more to blame than the other one. But that's besides
the point when it comes to the children. When you genuinely know
inside that the Father is no risk to the children, but it's actually
necessary for the children. Right, then to do it, I said, these are
not pedophiles, these are not abusers, these are just normal
fathers, right, they may have made some of these may have made a
mistake, you know, in their marriage, because I mean, you need
you need two hands to clap. But in this particular case, anyway,
because he learnt have several friends of his who had this
problem, because he'd learned from several people he knows who've had
this problem. And who've just had literally agonizing years and
years and years after divorce to try to see their children who they
have great love for and for which they were willing to do whatever,
his child was only a few months old, when the divorce took place.
As good as some advice that was given to him, he decided
proactively to cut off all ties with his son and his wife.
So obviously, he's cut ties with his wife because they're divorced.
But he has also said, I want nothing to do with the child,
unless you want to come and drop the child off, then I'm willing to
do it. But he knows that she's going to use that child against
because he knows how she is where he thinks he knows. So he has
refused to engage. So after several months, she tried to say
that, okay, you know, she tried to get the brother involved her
brother involved to say, you need to see the child child needs to be
in your, you know, needs to have a father figure, etc, etc. So he
says, Okay, if you want me to see him, because you know, they don't,
that's not what they're doing. They want to just get him. And
I'll explain why later. Because you're wondering what, how is this
even possible? Right? So I've done a lot of research in this. So he
told her, okay, fine, you know, bring the child on. So then, you
know what the next you know, what the next condition was, is that
one of us will have to be there with him because he doesn't know
you guys.
Now, he's very good with children. And I know that for a fact. And
there's enough people within his extended family to to be able to
be there to you know, comfort the child if they need it. They don't
really want to give the child because then after a once he said
once, once he once he said, Look, if you want, you come and drop him
off, I've got enough people to look after him. Right? They
stopped, they stopped contacting him.
Right? So his extended family, a lot of them can't understand why
he's doing this, because for a person to literally shut out their
own child
is unthinkable, genuinely unthinkable. It took me so long to
understand what he's doing. And I half agree with what he's doing
right now. Because if he gets if he The point is that he thinks,
and he's been told by psychologists to think as well
that if he develops a relationship with his child, and she is
definitely going to mess him around, meaning the mother, right?
He's just going to be in agony, and eventually you have to lose
custody anyway. So this way, at least he'll be able to show his
child when he grows up enough. That look, I tried my best, but
this was your mother's doing you can't be helped because a lot of
the time these children will grow hating their father because that's
what's been fed to them.
That said majority of his family I don't think they even understand
why he's doing this thing is crazy. But I think some people win
you actually understand the details, and and the whole future
possible prospects here, then they can sympathize with this approach.
I can, I mean, right. I know also several other cases. But I mean, I
think this is enough for us to be able to understand how big a
problem this is. Now, as I mentioned that what's surprising
from most of the above cases is that the mothers in most of these
are religious mothers, practicing mothers, practicing families that
she lives with. Sometimes even older man in the family tably.
He's in the family, Sufis in the family, religious people in the
family. Right. But they just don't, you know, what baffled me
for the most part was, can they not understand that this is
oppressing the child to deprive a child of their father? Can they
not see that, that they tried to punish the the child's father ex
husband, but in that what they're actually doing is that they're
actually causing huge detriment to the child?
Like, just how do you justify such a thing? How can they continue
living with themselves knowing that they're harming their
children?
Sometimes the extended family are part of it. Sometimes actually,
the the woman herself is under pressure from a family. So while
she doesn't mind, it's the extended family. But for the most
part, it's actually the the wife herself, the mother herself, and
she's just co opted everybody on her side. Or some of them. In
fact, there's one case where the brothers of that of that mother,
were willing to take extreme measures to, you know, to
basically secretly bring the child home to the Father because they
knew what their sister was doing was wrong. But they said nobody
can speak to her. She's just lost her mind.
Right. So then I looked into the psychology behind this, because
when I saw several, I mean, at least 10 cases, I would say that I
know, personally, right, mostly in the area, some outside of the
area, I thought, if that's the case is I know that there's,
there's 1000s of cases, there's probably millions of cases of
this, and this must have been researched. And it has, and this
type of behavior is that they say it comes from two reasons, right?
One is a this type of behavior could be identified as a form of
narcissism, right, which basically is an intense form of selfishness
and self absorption. Only I am right. And only I'm right. And
when you look at non narcissistic people and the traits they're on,
there's a few traits about them. They're unable to appreciate
others perspectives. It's only my perspective, and it's not yours.
Recently, I was having a discussion with somebody about
something that happened five years ago. Right. And I felt that what
had happened at that time, and this has nothing to really to do
marriage. What had happened five years ago, I felt that it was
correct. According to this other individual. He thinks it's
incorrect, because he was he was he lost something in that, but I
think it was completely valid. So he's asking me now in five years,
do you think it was wrong? What happened? And I said, No, I don't
think so. And he was disgusted. He was aghast. He was like, How can
you not know that? How can you not believe that? How can you still
say was right?
I'm very common. I said, I said, well, there can be two
perspectives. And he's 20 years older than me, I think, like,
hasn't life shown you that there could be two perspectives or more
than one perspective in a thing? And it's humanly possible to have
for somebody to hold a different perspective, okay, one of you is
going to be right, obviously, but somebody can even a wrong opinion
somebody can and you just have to accept that. You don't have to
accept their opinion. But you have to accept the fact that not
everybody is going to think alike as you and if you don't, then it
means you're probably narcissistic, that you just can't
believe why everybody doesn't see things the way you do.
So, in this case, this seems to come from narcissism, intense form
of selfishness, and self absorption. They're unable to
appreciate others perspectives. And then they tend to be hyper
focused, hyper focused on their own desires and feelings. My
desire. I've been hurt in this process, even though I may have
caused it in the first place. But why did he divorce me? Why did he
divorce me? Right?
After divorce, this vendetta data sets into the heart.
The Vendetta is that they want to destroy the other parent. And the
best tool, the most effective tool that they have, most convenient
weapon that they have is the children in this unholy mission of
this. The child is just a pawn and they don't realize this. They give
no consideration to the child's best interests, right. Rather,
they consider the alienation of that
from the Father, is probably the best protection from the Father,
from the perceived evil in their mind of the Father, understand
that they have a perceived evil, that the Father is an evil man,
because this is what he did to me. Right? They don't think that they
could, they could have also caused this. And again, I'm not talking
about who's right and wrong in terms of the divorce. But then
they think that I want to save my child from that father, whereas
the father's relationship to the child is totally different from a
father's relationship to the mother of that child. And you
could have to, that's why I keep saying that mother, in laws
individually with everybody else can be the most wonderful people.
But when it comes to their daughter in law, sometimes if
there's a problem, and likewise, a daughter in law can be a
completely decent person with everybody else around her. But
there's this this different dynamic when it comes to her
mother in law. That's just, you know, you put people in different
situations, they will react differently, right? There isn't,
it doesn't mean that they're evil people entirely.
Such people anyway, they are set to so the second so the first
thing is that they have narcissistic tendencies. The
second cause here from a clinical perspective, is that they appear
to display borderline personality disorder, right, which you can
call BPD. For anybody who's in a medical field, a borderline
personality disorder. So it may not be full, but it's definitely
borderline personality, in which intense emotion becomes expressed
his anger, they've got a lot of emotion, pent up from what was
going on. Right. And Jerry, women tend to be more emotion than men
anyway, where men can generally get get over things easily for
women is a bit more difficult. Right?
So it's expressed his anger, and they experience longer bouts of
disappointed disappointment and distress than healthy people. And
they find it difficult. I mean, I'm not talking to all women, this
is talking about not just women, but even men with this borderline
personality disorder, which is a more general problem, right. But
women who have this problem of depriving their children relate to
this particular diagnosis, right. So they expect experience much
longer bouts of disappointing distressed and healthy people. And
it's much more difficult for them to self soothe. They can't be
soothed easily, especially by themselves, because it's just
raging for them. They actually then end up developing a victim
mentality that allows them to blame others and then to victimize
them.
You can read about this if you want in Psychology Today, right?
It's called the parental alienation syndrome, what it does
and who does it. The what they end up doing then is they actually
twist reality and they hurl accusations against the other
parents, because that's the way you indoctrinate, they falsely
accused them of abuse. Or very, these are various ways that they
commonly interfere with the others planned parents parenting time. So
okay, even if the Court has said, Okay, you have to just to be there
for two hours or whatever. Just recently, somebody told me that he
had the right through court to go and see his son. So when he got
there, she said, Oh, you didn't bring a car seat. So you can't
take him. That's against the law. And she had a car seat in the
house. So finally, he drove all the way back, got a car seat from
somebody, and now to put it in, because it's too complicated,
because somebody else's. And so eventually just put it there. So
she eventually comes into the car in front of every race provoking,
and look, you don't even know how to put a car seat. And what she
wants is she wants him to react and get angry, so that then she
can, she can record that and report it. And then she gets full
custody. You just have to show how bad your husband or your your the
father is. And the small things, I mean, generally taken for them.
So what they'll do is they'll say, Oh, he's sleeping at that time you
continue, oh, he's sick on your parents. He says one day you've
got his sick, it's not right for him to come through. Oh, he had to
go for a potty or something like that. Because at the end of the
day, the court generally listens to the mothers because originally
the idea is that when they're young, I mean they should be with
the mother anyway, even Islam says that. So that's why it's just
really lopsided.
One mother has been known to tell her children that they could not
afford any food at home because their father wasted all their all
their money.
In another one a parent repeatedly miss or miss inform the other
parent about school activities. Now remember, this could go the
other way around as well in some cases, right but most cases are
the mothers doing aggressing they poison the main of their children
to enlist them in their battle. Basically,
the ultimate mission is to destroy the other parents relationship
with their children. But in this high stress, pursuit of revenge,
everybody's suffering their their suffering themselves as well. But
this is just one way for them to release their emotion.
That's why they've actually finally given a name to this
problem. That's why it's commonly called a malicious mother
syndrome. Them
malicious mother syndrome. If I'm to ask you do not do you know,
anybody who's suffering from malicious? I'm not gonna say Do
you know any malicious mothers? Because that's not the point here.
Right? The point is, do you know people who are suffering from
malicious mothers syndrome? Are you suffering from malicious
mothers syndrome? Right. And again, please don't take it that
I'm a man speaking to you. Right? I'm saying this for the children.
And for your own sanity, this is not healthy. We need to get help.
Psychologists can help you with this especially religious
psychologist can help with this to try to remove that vendetta
because by anybody's rules, these can any family that's involved in
this, you will also stand in front of Allah. If you're if you're
supporting a malicious father, or a malicious father with malicious
father syndrome, you can call it or a mother with malicious Mother,
you will be part of it. Because this is destroying the child, your
grandchild, your nephew, nice, nice, wherever it is that you're
supporting.
As bad as the father is for any other reason, you can disagree
with him all you like, but given the custody of his children, as I
said, it's the mother's immediate family members sometimes that are
the main offenders, right? And sometimes she's just, they force
her into this behavior. And she has nowhere else to go. So
sometimes she can, but in most of the cases, she is actually the
main person doing this. As I said, the greatest harm in this in the
long run is going to be for the children. And okay, so this is
what the this is what some of the research shows that they can
suffer from many issues, these children in these kinds of a
relationship, right, this tug of war, they suffer from numerous
they it hampers their development during their most impressionable
years. Because remember, studies show that until the age of seven,
children learn purely by observation, they can learn
languages purely by observation, not by repetition. After the age
of seven, those reception receptors, they close. And then
people learn children learn by repetition. That's why it's so
easy to learn things by the age of seven, because it's all
absorption, after age of 70 has to be repetition. But if you say
things
repeatedly, and enough times, then the children will take those
things on. But unfortunately, this happens even before that age. And
then it goes beyond that, beyond the age of teenagers as well. So
these children, number one, it it hampers their development during
the most impressionable years. It includes depression, low self
esteem, trust issues, because trust you, you're literally you've
been told from a young age that your father is not to be trusted.
You have a natural trust for your father, it doesn't matter how bad
your father or mother are, you have a natural inclination to them
because you that you are part of them. And now you've been told
that the very people that you are naturally supposed to be able to
trust probably the only people you trust in the world sometimes that
you can't trust them.
Can you see the damage that that is doing? Right? And eventually it
provides an increased risk of developing substance abuse
problem, right? This is from the Huffington Post, October 19.
There's an article by Joseph Cordell, right, which is in the
Huffington Post, October 19 2014, if you want to check it out,
ultimately growing up in a single parent home with hatred burning
for your father, in your heart due to the lies and plays and
narratives fed to you. It cannot be very healthy. I mean, anybody
with any mind can can should be able to say that.
So what are the Islamic guidelines? In this regard?
What are the Islamic guidelines in this regard?
I'm going to tell you two aspects of this, right? One is that if
things come to dispute, then these are the Islamic guidelines. These
are the absolute you can sell fundamental rights that Islam has
laid down in the case where it's not going to work in any other
way. These rights don't mean that they must work this way if
everything is being done well for the child's welfare. All right. So
these are things some of these you will have heard, but I want to put
it in perspective for you today. Right? So the Islamic guidelines
for child custody. It stipulates that upon separation between
husband and wife, mother and father, it is generally the mother
that gets custody for the children, right rather than the
Father. So the mother ends up being the primary custodial parent
for the child until that's until an age that's the age of
discernment, not the age of maturity or age of discernment,
age of the sermon what they call in Arabic Tamizh which is when the
child is now of an age where they can figure out things at least
right and wrong black and white, they can see things for
themselves. They're not just totally have to be guided and
everything. Of course they still need a lot of parents guidance,
but they start understanding things. That is that is seen to be
the age of
Seven, write for both boys and girls seven. Right? And there's a
unanimous agreement between the scholars on this issue that when
the boy reaches the age of seven,
right?
Okay, let's put it this way, when until the age of seven, both boy
and girls, they know that there's a very special tact that is needed
to bring the children up. Right, there's a certain level of
compassion and care, and patience. And I think these three qualities,
a mother has more than the father, you may get some isolated three
cases where the father has more of that than the mother. But most of
the time, it's mothers who have the care, the emotion, the
compassion, and the support and the patience to bring the children
I'm saying because it's women generally have that Islam gave the
custody to women, because they've got a lot more patience in dealing
with the difficulty is involved in this early stage, or the early
stages of child rearing.
Right, if the mother is not available, for whatever reason,
then it doesn't still go to the Father before they age seven for
boys and nine for girls, seven for boys and nine for girls. The
reason why they extend two years beyond for girls is because now
the girls are probably going to start the onset of menstruation
nothing's and the Father is not best placed to teach that. So
that's why they say okay, let the mother continue for another two
years, at least. Right? So she can teach them about purity and about
these other things. Otherwise, when the child is able to now eat
and drink for themselves, clean themselves for themselves, etc,
then they're considered to be at the level of discernment, which is
around the age of seven, as I said, for boys, but girls are
allowed until the age of nine. But if the mother is not present in
any of these cases after divorce, for whatever reason, right, or she
can't be present or explain the custody generally travels, not
transfers, not to the husband, but it goes to other female relatives
in the following order. Okay, listen to this Kevin in the
following order.
From the wife, it actually goes to her mother. So the mother's mother
that the nanny, right, the child's maternal grandmother, she gets the
first rate after the wife. Okay? Now, if she can't do it, she's too
old, she or she's not around or she's got some other issue. Then
it goes to the daddy. That means the father's mother, right? The
child's paternal grandfather grandmother.
Now why that's the case. I mean, our nanny is more compassionate
than daddy's I don't know. Would you guys say that? I mean, like if
I asked you do you like your nanny or your daddy mom? Is there
something about just having more care for your
for your daughter's children than it is for your son's children
because that's what makes the difference in it anyway let you
guys figure that one out. Right? But that's interesting because I
did love my nine year lot I love my daddy as well but I think I did
love my nine year old she died earlier though. Rahim Allah Rahim
Allah.
So
after the is now if the father's mother is not a daddy is not
there, then the is the child's older sister if she's got an older
sister that can look after, because this is all going in, in
an order of who probably is gonna have the most compassion. The next
best person. So the older sister then is probably because older
sisters to the younger sisters, they're going to be very caring
for them generally. Then after that, it goes to the maternal aunt
to her colors after the older sister, then it goes to maternal
aunts. Right? And I can say for sure maternal aunts are they have
an ajeeb? You know, they have an amazing amount of, of compassion
for their nephews for for their for their sisters, children, right
colors are the best thing you can find in this, you know, in your
life. Right colors are wonderful generally. Right? So the maternal
aunt, then he goes to the paternal line, and we see always goes to
the mother's side first before the father's side, right because there
must be some psychology there. Right? Only then does it transfer
to the male members of either family. If none of these women are
available, right? Maternal aunties paternal, aunties. Only then does
it go to this is until the age of seven and nine boys and girls,
right. Now, why would it be that the mothers custody is transferred
over to the nanny or the or the or the auntie? Why? Why? So how does
a mother lose her primary custodial rights? Right or any of
the other above women? Number of things, right? It's she it's
technically forfeited if she marries a man who's unrelated to
charter if she does end up getting married, as many women do get an
end up getting married. And if that man is not a mutter is not a
blood relative of the child, then you'd expect that the child is
going to be competition for that man. Because the mother is going
to that's her child. The mother is going to be really attached to the
child and the Father is going to see that as a
A competition as a threat and it's just going to mess up the old
system. So that's why it's better that a child not be with the
mother, but we would not if the child gets mother to the if the
child's mother gets married to the child's uncle or something like
that who's related anyway, then she doesn't lose custody. Right?
When he said losing custody means technically losing custody, which
means that if she if the husband is fine, because not all non
related men who marry a existing mother are going to be bad to the
children. Some are very good. So if it works out, it's fine. And
you know, it's fine because the main thing we have to look at is
the child's welfare. So it's like just because the Sharia says that
it moves on that you must give it up, it's not like that. You can
keep it if nobody else is gonna, you know, it's got a problem with
it, and you don't have a problem with it. Your husband doesn't have
a problem with it either.
Anyway, that this is based on a hadith saturated imam of Buddha
with any mama had where Abdullah, you know, I'm not even asked to be
alone there. I said, a woman said, she came to us with Allah said,
Allah Islam, she said, the other sort of Allah, this son of mine,
my womb, was a vessel for him, my * were a source of drink for
him, and my lap you let was a refuge for him. And now his father
has divorced me and wants to take him away from me.
You can imagine her emotion, right? So the prophets, Allah,
some said, you have more, right? So long as you do not remarry.
Then the father can actually argue his case, I tell you something,
this country, most fathers aren't going to argue the case, if you
allow him to custody because they don't at the time,
they're going to be at work. So no father is going to come and say,
No, I want to take 100% Child Custody unless there's some kind
of, you know, they can sit at home and they've got money coming in
from somewhere that I doubt they're going to ever do that. All
they want, generally, for the most part is just custody for some time
of the week.
Other impediments to a mother's or any woman's custody, for that
matter, any man's custody for that matter, would be problems with her
general character. So for example, sanity, right, she's not very
same, right, there's problem with her mind, or she's not able to
fulfill obligations towards the children because she is maybe
physically challenged somehow or some, you know, disabled somehow.
For instance, another one would be if she's just not into it, she's
just constantly out with friends or partying, neglecting the child,
you know, she has been known to leave the child at home, as we've
seen in the news sometimes, right? Where she goes and constantly
drops them off. And she's out there partying late into the
night, you know, even on Friday nights, right on Thursday nights,
whatever.
Now, another one would be if she's involved in some kind of substance
abuse, or being alcoholic, for example, this would cause any
relative or any person who's supposed to have the right to lose
their primary custodial rights. But if they but the fuqaha, the
general, jurists say that if they're able to remove these
problems from themselves, they get the right back because they were
the primary rights holder. Now,
as I said, Why does the child why is the child now to go to the
father after the age of seven or nine? Generally speaking, why why
should he have the primary custodial rights then? Right? Now
remember, I keep saying primary custodial rights, because in any
in all of these situations, the person whose primary custodial
rights are those who the children generally stay with but the other
others have the right to visit, and to take them out and do a few
things with them. They just don't have the right to look after them
24/7 for the whole week, unless, of course, the mother is in
hospital or something like that. In none of these cases, does it
mean that if you've got primary custodial rights, that you have
exclusive rights, it doesn't mean that it just means you're the
primary carer, that's it, the other person can come and see
them, or you can let the children go there. And that can be whatever
is appropriate.
So why is it that after that it goes to the Father, right? The
reason is that after that the children need to learn how to
protect themselves in this world. They the boys need to learn
manliness, girls as well, they need to know how to protect
themselves and probably the Father is in a better position sometimes
to do that being a man in a traditional sense, right? That's,
that's the reason why, in fact, it mentions in the books that
if the if the because you have to remember that bringing up a child.
I mean, I know in this case is a bit different. But generally
bringing our child anywhere in the world means money, right expenses,
right? The father obviously has to pay that even if the mother is in
doing the is the primary custodian the father has to pay the mother
is not in fact, the father has to even pay her the lodging expenses,
the home expenses and all the other expenses and even there's a
whole discussion about whether if she has no other way to earn money
for herself, right. Does the father have to pay for her as
well? Right then there's a whole discussion about if there's nobody
else
Look after like, there's no other and you do it for free then and
the father has money or the child has his own money because he's got
an inheritance or something, then the mother can be paid. I'm not
going to get into that, because that's a bit convoluted. But of
course, you can ask the question to move these when you need to, if
you're in that situation, but I want to just Jen mentioned the
general rulings to you, because there's a lot of confusion about
this. But anyway, after ages of seven, seven or nine, it's
supposed to be the father's custody, if the father wants it,
if he wants it, he can literally Islamically take over. Right?
Again, that doesn't mean that the mother is not able to see them
anymore. Of course, the mother can, nobody is allowed to deprive
anybody, but it just talking about whose primary custody, I would
just tell you from experience, and from the practice and the norm in
the UK, and in the Western countries, in general, fathers
won't have time to be primary carers in most cases. But if they
do, then they can actually assert that right if they want to. So
again, if the mother continues to look after the children,
and the father has secondary, because he that's completely fine.
It doesn't mean it has to go over. But I just want to mention that it
is Islamic right to take over if he really wants to. Now, there
were some scholars who said that at the age of seven or nine, the
child should be allowed to choose for themselves. Because there's
one at least that indicates that however, the majority saying no,
that's obviously not the best thing you can offer a child
because the child, and I've seen this in cases, you know, the
parent who shows the most leniency will let them do what they like,
where what they like, buys them what they like, that's the tug of
war. In this case, one parent wants their wants their tarbiyah,
the other parent just wants to win the battle. So they let them do
whatever they want.
I've seen so many cases like that. So if you're going to get a seven
or eight year old kid to choose, they're going to choose the one
who lets them play station more. Right, let's then mess around more
doesn't have to be a particular time to sleep, you know, maybe
even let them miss school or something like that. So that's why
they say that no, that you really can't do that, because that child
is not really at the age to understand.
Now, the final few points is that, as I said earlier,
whoever has primary custody, they must remain in a close by
vicinity,
they're not allowed to go and take the child and move to another city
in which the child can't, or the other parent can't comfortably go
in the day, right, visit them and come back home.
So for example, to be in Blackburn, that would be difficult
for the father to other mother for that matter, to be able to go back
and forth. Right? It has to be like, for example, east to you
know, maybe maybe 20 minutes drive or something like that, that's
understandable to be within a distance where they can see each
other quite conveniently. Otherwise, it's not allowed. As I
said, I'm trying to make it as practical as possible in our in
our situation based on our understanding.
So I think that pretty much
that pretty much gives us a full understanding, at least in terms
of the general framework of Islamic custodial rights and how
they work. All right. And again, what the books do say right at the
end of all of this is that this, you know, this is where if things
break down completely, then this is the absolute bare bones that
you can, you know, fight for these particular rights. But otherwise,
whatever works for the child, and for the parents, they can do that,
because it's not haram, for the mother to continue looking after
the child if the father is okay with it after those ages.
Likewise, it's not haram for the father to look after the mental
age of seven and nine, if the mother is unable to do so for
whatever reason, right? Likewise, they also mentioned that sometimes
you could actually have a husband that the new husband that the wife
will marry will be much more compassionate to the child than
any other member of her family, because maybe they just not into
it. So that's fine. Whatever really works, but the rights have
to be fulfilled, or both parents, they should have the rights of
visitation and for having the children for, you know, for
convenient amounts of time. So that ends that, again, to
reiterate the malicious mother or the malicious father syndrome, it
could be in some rare cases, right? So the malicious mother
syndrome. I think the only time that I've seen a father get the
custodial rights is where the mother was actually adulterous.
She actually brought this fellow home and the father wasn't there.
The child was downstairs, he's about nine or 10 years old at the
time. And she went lock the door of her room and the child went up
to look after he could hear noises and being graphic here. Reason is
that a father used to say that afterwards. He didn't know this
for two years or something, or one and a half years. But he says
every time my child ever saw anybody being intimate or anything
he would like put his hands in his ears. He was traumatized,
traumatized by that.
She would never let him see her phone. He knew something was
wrong, but he couldn't prove it. One day after about a year or year
and a half, he managed to get access to everything
She actually had a false false Facebook page. And it was all
clear. But she worked. When he confronted she was not willing to,
then she ran off. Right, she took off from the house. And for some
reason, she didn't want to even talk to the child. The school knew
about all of this. So eventually the judge gave him custody. But
that's the only case in the cases that I know where the father
actually received full custody. Right. And he's not trying to
poison his child against his mother, but his mother just
doesn't want to be part of it. I don't know what the situation is
right now. So we ask Allah for tawfeeq. And we ask Allah to solve
our situation. Believe me, if you are emotionally traumatized, and
you can be because divorce is a bad thing. Please go and get get
help. We know many women in this area who are emotionally
traumatized like this to the level sometimes of insanity, right?
They're not there anymore. They're just not, then that's really sad
for us to see, because this is our community. All right, and every
community probably has, we're just talking about our community. These
people need professional help the molana in the masjid, I can't help
you.
You have to remember there's a difference between a qualified
counselor of depression which is a clinical problem, right?
I can't help you with clinical depression.
I don't have the training. And I don't think many other other
unlisted had a training to do this. That's why we need our
animals and animals because we get asked this question, we get
consulted about this. So we do need to have this unmarshal I
think that there's an awareness now there's lots of courses taking
place. But otherwise you need to find a religious right person who
understands the culturally sensitive Council you can just go
to any Council either has to be conservative because they don't
understand the culture that we're from, we still have culture,
right? Really get some help and if you know people in your family and
help them to get some help.
Welcome to that one. And in hamdu Lillahi Rabbil Alameen May Allah
subhanho wa Taala bring about good May Allah subhanho wa Taala bring
about good through these programs and through this awareness and
allow us to have a much more healthier community and healthier
society, healthy and next generation may Allah subhanho wa
Taala restore the rights that each parent is supposed to get. May
Allah allow us the ability to restore the rights for each
parents, and may Allah make that easy for us to do that one and
then hamdulillahi rabbil Alameen