Ruling on sons refusing to provide financial maintenance for their father in financial difficulty

Question:
This questioner sent this message. Jabir from Mughayil Asir says: I have grown-up children, and I am an elderly man. These children do not work, and I did not fall short in raising them. When I became old, they fled from me. When I ask them for help, they do not help me. There is another one of the children who receives a salary, and he still persistently asks me to marry him off, while I am poor. Please guide me, O Shaykh.

Answer:
It is obligatory for them to fear Allah, to help you, and to spend on you as long as you are in need. This is what is obligatory for them if they have the ability. So, it is obligatory for them to spend on your needs. Likewise, the other son must also spend according to his capacity. It is not obligatory for you to marry him off [al-Baqarah:286] But if you were able and he was unable, you would be required to marry him off, if you were able and he was unable. But now, as long as you are unable, nothing is required of you. He must spend on you along with his brothers. He must spend on your needs, just as his brothers are also required, according to their capacity, to spend on you. This is because Allah (Exalted and Majestic is He) has made maintaining family ties and dutifulness to parents obligatory. And among the greatest acts of dutifulness is that they spend on their father when he needs them. Yes.

The presenter : May Allah reward you with good, Your Eminence the Shaykh.