Yasir Qadhi – Ask Shaykh YQ #104 – Can Parents Pressure Their Children to Divorce Their Spouses
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Brother Dalits from Kashmir emails, Mashallah, I'm very happy we have our Kashmiri brothers and sisters watching mirrorless printed and make it easy for all of you. And he says that he got married, and now his parents are having issues with his wife and his parents are strongly pressuring him to divorce. And his parents mentioned that even Omar rhodiola, one was told by his father hon hotdog to divorce his wife, and he ended up divorcing his wife. And so now the parents are bringing this up. And he is saying, is he sinful for not obeying his parents because he wishes to remain with his wife? One
out of seven,
poverty in Asia? No, he him first Aloo, Lake Erie.
The response to this is panela. Where does one begin? This is one of our biggest issues and problems when it comes to marriage is the in laws of both sides, sometimes they interfere too much. And parents want to live their dreams through their children not realizing that their children are no longer children, not realizing that two children are now adults, not realizing that they themselves would never have accepted such interference when they were at that age. And this is how to law. This is the bane of humanity. You know, as the saying goes, every you know, mother in law, at one point in time was in fact a daughter in law, right. And yet, one that table's turned a lot of times it
changes in the same goes for father as well, that every you know, father in law was at one point in time a son in law, you know, but so powerful that this is a less cluttered and in our our weakness of humanity. So Pamela, how quickly we forget that when we are in positions of weakness, we think and act differently. When we get to positions of power, we forget, and this is the general rule. It's not just a father in law, mother in law, it's even when it comes to politicians and kings or princes or rich versus poor that we forget how it used to be. And now we get a sense of arrogance and pride and whatnot. So this is our weakness, we ask a lot forgiveness. Now. The son is saying
that the parents are putting pressure that obedience to the parents is obligatory. Indeed, obedience to the parents is generally obligatory, no question about that, however, generally, not unconditionally, our Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam said, there is no obedience to a created being, when it comes to disobeying one of the rights of Allah subhanho wa Taala, you have to realize your husband, that now you have the rights of your father and mother, and you have the rights of another lady that you have married, that is called your wife, you cannot ignore any of these rights at the expense of the others, you have to balance all of these rights, you have to balance them, you
cannot neglect the rights of your parents, but neither can the rights of your parents infringe on the rights of your spouse, because each one now has a half on you. shareholders have even taymiyah he says in his famous book errata famous book of, you know, principles of Filkin what he has chosen and Fela Maxim's, he says, it is obligatory on every person to listen to his parents, whenever it does not involve a sin. Even if the parents are not righteous, however, listen to him. And to me, this is when they command the child or the son to do something that will be beneficial to them and not harmful to him. So when the parents say that we don't have anybody to help us, you know, bring
food to our house, you know, it is obligatory for the son or daughter to figure out how to bring food to them, they cannot go outside how to take care of them if he's able to do so this becomes watch, because this is a benefit to them, and there's no immediate harm on him. But when the parents when the parents command something that is harmful to the son or daughter in this case, and there's no benefit going back to them immediately. In this case, it is not obligatory to listen to the parents, the parents are not unconditional. They're not allowed to walk in Gaza, whatever they say you must listen to know the parents have a reasonable right of obedience. If it's becomes
unreasonable, we do not pay attention to the parents and therefore, if they are asking for something unreasonable And generally speaking, generally speaking, the parents getting involved in the marriage is unreasonable. This is the default. This is just the default. There might be some exceptions. Sometimes a spouse is very abusive, and the other spouse doesn't see and the parents and relatives are all saying to the spouse, hey, you need to get out you need to do any work for whatever reason he or she doesn't see this. So that's a different thing. But the default is that the reasons that the parents have or not, who cares if the parents don't like you?
Know the spouse is the marriage is going to take place that has taken place, there might be children involved. It's the two that are living together that actually have to deal with the primary repercussions of each other. So if a third party, if an Uncle and Auntie parent comes and says I don't like, you know, the spouse, okay, you only visit once a week, once a month, once a year, it's the two of them that have to live together. And therefore, they do not have to listen to the parents in this regard. In fact, as for this issue of Omar and rhodiola, one, this is a famous famous incident. Indeed, it did happen. But you know, in my humble was asked about this exact issue, that a
man came and said that my father wants me to divorce my my wife, and my father is quoting Omar about his son, Abraham. Well, because it did happen, that would have been a hot topic, you know, had an issue with his daughter in law, and we don't know the details, and even more, basically was basically the process of siding with the Father instead to divorce here. So we don't know the details of that. But there is no doubt that that reason must have been an Islamic one. Not that I don't like the lady, there must have been an Islamic reason that for whatever reason, it was not seeing the issue at hand, and therefore he was told to divorce. When Mr. Mohammed was asked about
this exact same scenario, a man came and says, My father's quoting me or more or more, he basically said to him, when you have a father like a mobile hotspot, then you listen to him basically, is them paraphrasing, like your father is not.
The level of knowledge and taqwa and a man that your father has cannot be is, there is no comparison. So when your father becomes number of no top, then you listen to, I'm going to divorce your wife. Otherwise, if we were to open this door, dear brothers and sisters, no marriage on Earth would remain, because it is the default in our human weakness. It is the default sub panel that parents are not satisfied with the spouses of their children, even if they have chosen them, by the way. Why? Because they think my son deserves better my daughter deserved better. This is their own standard. And this is human nature, right? Oh, we were better than this. He could have had somebody
or she could have had somebody better somehow. It's not your life to live anymore. It's not your life. One of our biggest problems is parents interfering in the marriages of their children, thinking that their children are children, they are no longer children. They are now full fledged adults. Once they are married, they're standing on their feet. It's not your business to interfere. Yes, if there is genuine harm, or an unjust Islamic character or something of this nature, you should explain and explain the reason explain the reason that this is harmful to you to your health, he or she is abusing you, he or she is doing something that is not good for Islam, you know, going
behind your back and doing something that's going to harm you, etc, etc. Explain your reasons, and then bring other people involved as well. Don't just say I don't like the girl. I don't like the boy, he's not good enough. That's not your business to decide. Now the marriage has taken place and it is their life to live. And therefore, dear brother Talat, you do not have to listen to your parents. When it comes to this issue. It is not obligatory to listen to your parents, or when they're asking for that which is unreasonable or that which is harmful to you and to your other obligations. And Allah subhana wa tada knows best