Prohibition of Severing Family Ties
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner : This is a strong question, but we will keep it brief. The questioner says: A disagreement arose between us and my maternal aunt, which forced us to cut off contact.
The Shaykh : And with whom? Khalid.
The questioner : After a while, I learned that she was ill, so I visited her without my father’s knowledge. Then my father found out and became extremely angry. He nearly made me angry, insulted me greatly, and nearly expelled me from the house. He told me that if I went to your aunt or her children again, I would be expelled from the house, and he would disown me, saying I am not his son. What should I do?
The Shaykh : It is obligatory for you to maintain ties with your maternal aunt, because your maternal aunt is a close relative. Allah the Exalted has commanded the maintenance of kinship ties and warned against severing them. He said:[Muhammad 47:22-23] The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) informed us that whoever maintains his kinship ties, Allah will maintain his. So you should maintain ties with your maternal aunt in every way that constitutes maintaining ties, and do not inform your father of this. If the knowledge reaches your father and he does to you what you mentioned, then be patient and seek reward from Allah. Indeed, a person may be harmed for what he does in obedience to Allah, and his duty in this situation is to be patient. I advise my father on this occasion; I advise him against this behavior, because this means opposing the ruling of Allah Mighty and Majestic and contradicting the command of Allah the Exalted. Allah commands the maintenance of kinship ties, and you are ordering the severing of kinship ties. This is completely contrary to what Allah the Exalted has commanded. So it is obligatory for you to fear your Lord, O [father], if what your son attributed to you is true, and to enable him to maintain ties with his maternal aunt, and not to subject him to any harm in that. As for his saying that he will disown him, the matter is not for a person to disown his son. Disowning a son is among the greatest of sins and major sins, and it is not possible to disown him, even if he did disown him, he would not be disowned, because he has already acknowledged him as his son and attributed him to himself.
The Shaykh : And with whom? Khalid.
The questioner : After a while, I learned that she was ill, so I visited her without my father’s knowledge. Then my father found out and became extremely angry. He nearly made me angry, insulted me greatly, and nearly expelled me from the house. He told me that if I went to your aunt or her children again, I would be expelled from the house, and he would disown me, saying I am not his son. What should I do?
The Shaykh : It is obligatory for you to maintain ties with your maternal aunt, because your maternal aunt is a close relative. Allah the Exalted has commanded the maintenance of kinship ties and warned against severing them. He said:
(22) So would you perhaps, if you turned away, cause corruption on earth and sever your [ties of] relationship? (23) Those [who do so] are the ones that Allah has cursed, so He deafened them and blinded their vision.
فَهَلْ عَسَيْتُمْ إِن تَوَلَّيْتُمْ أَن تُفْسِدُوا فِي الْأَرْضِ وَتُقَطِّعُوا أَرْحَامَكُمْ أُولَٰئِكَ الَّذِينَ لَعَنَهُمُ اللَّهُ فَأَصَمَّهُمْ وَأَعْمَىٰ أَبْصَارَهُمْ
Source
قناة «فضيلة الشيخ محمد بن صالح العثيمين»، لقاء[48 من 49] النهي عن قطيعة الرحم - الشيخ ابن عثيمين - مشروع كبار العلماء — youtube.com
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.