Dutifulness to parents
Fatwa No: 469441

Question

Assalamualaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuhu! I have a question... I am preparing to register to a madrasah and it will be far away from our country or maybe far away from our place... and my mother is against it not becuase she does not want to but becuase she is worried about my life after graduating since they have limited offers in job, but I still want to register and want to be a scholar InshaAllah! My question is should I still register to continue my studies or not because my mother is against it? Jazakhallahu khairan

Answer

All perfect praise be to Allah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allah, and that Muhammad is His slave and Messenger.

If your mother prevents you from registering at that school for a good reason, such as it does not have a promising future, you should obey her. Jurists state that one must be dutiful to his parent in all cases other than disobedience to Allah, the Exalted. In this case, your mother did not prevent you from an act of obedience, nor did she command you to do an act of disobedience or what causes you harm, so you have to obey her. Registering at that school might eventually cause you to be undutiful to her. In ʿUmdat Al-Qaari Sharh Saheeh Al-Bukhaari (22/86), Badr Ad-Deen Al-ʿAyni said, “Sheikh Taqiy Ad-Deen As-Subki said, 'Undutifulness to parents is realized through hurting them in anyway, be it more or less and whether or not they prohibit (their children) from doing certain acts. (It is also) realized through disobeying their orders and prohibitions on condition that they (i.e. the parent’s orders and prohibitions) are not relevant to disobedience of Allah. He then narrated the statement of Al-Ghazaali, 'The majority of scholars believe that the parent must be obeyed even in suspicious matters.’

Likewise, in his Al-ʿIlaam bi Fawaa’ed Al-Ahkaam (374), Ibn Al-Mulaqqin said, “The most authentic definition for undutifulness to the parent is that it is any act that badly hurts the parent.

Allah knows best.

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