Maintenance of Relatives
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Number ( 8989 )
Q: I am 48 years old and have four daughters. My wife and I have suffered greatly in trying to treat them, and I continue to suffer because of their congenital deformities. I have incurred countless debts, and only Allah knows how we manage our lives. Without exaggeration, anyone who sees the full truth would know that we deserve charity in every sense of the word. Four years ago, my mother passed away, and my father is still alive. He has sixteen children from my mother—I am the eldest—and they are four sons and twelve daughters. When my mother died, my sister, who was ten years old at the time, asked my father to let her live with me and my daughters, but he did not agree. My father is old and has his own opinion, which he does not retract. My sister lived with him for more than two and a half years in a state of neglect, because during that time he married more than once, and he lived in Cairo , and his wives were from Cairo . After that, he brought my sister to me
to live with me, after she had lost much of her education, culture, and behavior. My four daughters, their mother, and I were living modestly, and there was no distress in our lives until my sister arrived. According to what she says and how she explains things to my daughters, she is stubborn, has a dry head, a black heart, and holds grudges, among other descriptions that no sane person would utter. However, my daughters' mother and I say: she is young and has not found anyone to guide her, so may Allah help us with patience and endurance, and perhaps she will improve with time. But unfortunately, the environment she lived in is different from the environment she came to live in. By the grace of Allah, we do not know of any fitnah (trial, discord or temptation), hatred, or constant complaints in our home, as she may have grown up in such an environment. Yet my daughters have started having bad psychological conflicts and endless suffering, to the point where my wife has been and still is trying to smooth things over, but it is taking a toll on her nerves. As for me, I am sick and disabled, suffering from a number of serious illnesses: I have coronary artery disease, arthritis, a blood clot in my leg, and cancer in a gland. Allah knows how I face the costs of treatment, and I do not think I need anything to disturb my life. Meanwhile, my father, may Allah forgive him, has a good income, and I believe I am not responsible for my sister as long as he is alive and earning, despite my feeling that the girl needs guidance and care. So, after two years of her being with us, I decided to send her back to my father after the end of the school year for the current
year, despite her failure and her lack of full readiness for studies. I say I decided to send her back to my father. I spoke with him on the phone; he lives in Egypt - Cairo - for about nine months of the year, and three months in the Kingdom, collecting rents from his properties... and so on. When I spoke with him, he expressed his unwillingness to do so and said to me: consider me dead - meaning: deceased - so I said to him: if, may Allah forbid, I die, then I will keep her in the Kingdom with one of her brothers, and I will spend on her education in the best schools, even a boarding school, like Dar al-Tarbiyah or others. The point is, he said: do not send her, that's all, and you are free to do as you please. My lord: the matter is not, in my view, a social problem: my question is from the perspective of religion and the Shari'ah. If I stand up to my father and refuse his order and send her to him, and I make him bear responsibility for her, would I have sinned? Because I fear Allah, if Allah wills, but after long and bitter thinking and suffering, I found no solution other than to send my sister back to where she came from, or to divorce my wife and break my daughters even more than they are already suffering from illnesses that have even caused high blood pressure, leaving the doctors puzzled by my situation.
A : If the matter is as you described, you are not obligated to maintain your sister,
nor to provide for her, and there is no blame in sending her to her father to avert the harm you mentioned. And success is from Allah, and may Allah send prayers and blessings upon our Prophet Muhammad, his family, and his Companions.
Q: I am 48 years old and have four daughters. My wife and I have suffered greatly in trying to treat them, and I continue to suffer because of their congenital deformities. I have incurred countless debts, and only Allah knows how we manage our lives. Without exaggeration, anyone who sees the full truth would know that we deserve charity in every sense of the word. Four years ago, my mother passed away, and my father is still alive. He has sixteen children from my mother—I am the eldest—and they are four sons and twelve daughters. When my mother died, my sister, who was ten years old at the time, asked my father to let her live with me and my daughters, but he did not agree. My father is old and has his own opinion, which he does not retract. My sister lived with him for more than two and a half years in a state of neglect, because during that time he married more than once, and he lived in Cairo , and his wives were from Cairo . After that, he brought my sister to me
to live with me, after she had lost much of her education, culture, and behavior. My four daughters, their mother, and I were living modestly, and there was no distress in our lives until my sister arrived. According to what she says and how she explains things to my daughters, she is stubborn, has a dry head, a black heart, and holds grudges, among other descriptions that no sane person would utter. However, my daughters' mother and I say: she is young and has not found anyone to guide her, so may Allah help us with patience and endurance, and perhaps she will improve with time. But unfortunately, the environment she lived in is different from the environment she came to live in. By the grace of Allah, we do not know of any fitnah (trial, discord or temptation), hatred, or constant complaints in our home, as she may have grown up in such an environment. Yet my daughters have started having bad psychological conflicts and endless suffering, to the point where my wife has been and still is trying to smooth things over, but it is taking a toll on her nerves. As for me, I am sick and disabled, suffering from a number of serious illnesses: I have coronary artery disease, arthritis, a blood clot in my leg, and cancer in a gland. Allah knows how I face the costs of treatment, and I do not think I need anything to disturb my life. Meanwhile, my father, may Allah forgive him, has a good income, and I believe I am not responsible for my sister as long as he is alive and earning, despite my feeling that the girl needs guidance and care. So, after two years of her being with us, I decided to send her back to my father after the end of the school year for the current
year, despite her failure and her lack of full readiness for studies. I say I decided to send her back to my father. I spoke with him on the phone; he lives in Egypt - Cairo - for about nine months of the year, and three months in the Kingdom, collecting rents from his properties... and so on. When I spoke with him, he expressed his unwillingness to do so and said to me: consider me dead - meaning: deceased - so I said to him: if, may Allah forbid, I die, then I will keep her in the Kingdom with one of her brothers, and I will spend on her education in the best schools, even a boarding school, like Dar al-Tarbiyah or others. The point is, he said: do not send her, that's all, and you are free to do as you please. My lord: the matter is not, in my view, a social problem: my question is from the perspective of religion and the Shari'ah. If I stand up to my father and refuse his order and send her to him, and I make him bear responsibility for her, would I have sinned? Because I fear Allah, if Allah wills, but after long and bitter thinking and suffering, I found no solution other than to send my sister back to where she came from, or to divorce my wife and break my daughters even more than they are already suffering from illnesses that have even caused high blood pressure, leaving the doctors puzzled by my situation.
A : If the matter is as you described, you are not obligated to maintain your sister,
nor to provide for her, and there is no blame in sending her to her father to avert the harm you mentioned. And success is from Allah, and may Allah send prayers and blessings upon our Prophet Muhammad, his family, and his Companions.
Source
www.alifta.gov.sa
The Arabic text is copied verbatim from the original source, without any edits.