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Receiving guests who hated late mother

Question

My dad had two wives. My mom never got along with the second wife nor with her sister. A few years after my mom's death, my dad went to visit my sister and was welcomed. Then he went to visit my sister a few times with his second wife because he needed treatments. They were all very well received all those times. However, they never ever visited her when our mom was alive; now my dad feels so comfortable that he is planning to go visit my sister with his second wife and her sister, who hated our mom. The question is: Should my sister receive the second wife's sister in her house?

Answer

All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah and that Muhammad  sallallaahu  `alayhi  wa  sallam ( may  Allaah exalt his mention ) is His slave and Messenger.

Your sister is not obliged to receive the sister of your father's wife in her home, but if there is nothing that Islamically prevents her from receiving her, then perhaps it would be better to receive her, especially if this pleases her father. By pleasing her father, she may gain the good of this worldly life and that of the Hereafter.

Abdullaah ibn ‘Amr  may  Allaah  be  pleased  with  him narrated that the Prophet  sallallaahu  `alayhi  wa  sallam ( may  Allaah exalt his mention ) said, “The pleasure of Allaah is in pleasing the parent, and the anger of Allaah is in making the parent angry.” [At-Tirmithi]

The ill feelings that were between the wife of your father and her sister on the one hand and your mother on the other is part of the past. Allaah may gather them all in Paradise with pure loving hearts, as Allaah says (what means): {And We will have removed whatever is within their breasts of resentment, [while] flowing beneath them are rivers. And they will say, "Praise to Allaah, Who has guided us to this; and we would never have been guided if Allaah had not guided us. Certainly the messengers of our Lord had come with the truth." And they will be called, "This is Paradise, which you have been made to inherit for what you used to do."} [Quran 7:43]

So you should forget the past, look forward to the future, and supplicate Allaah as much as possible to forgive and have mercy upon your mother.

For more benefit, please refer to fatwa 84351.

Allaah knows best.

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