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Fatwa CenterHis aged father is extremely discriminating between his two families
Question
I am 55 years old.My father got double married when i was near 8 years and committed extreme discrimination and injustice between two families as me with my mother brother &sisters spent miserable time. He as a army officer spent and enjoyed a best life with second wife and her five daughters.Though my step mother died in 1982 and my father totally focused to give best education and other emoluments to my step sisters who latterly became doctors and enjoying the upper class life whereas i did my job for the fulfillment of life necessities to my family.MY mother also died in 1988 without any assets given to her by my father whereas lots of assets and property was given to second family,and we are still lack of his attention. I am regularly offering my prayers from my school time.I never disobey to my elders even my father forcefully arranged my marriage, with promise to give us our rights but for last 25 years i am still waiting and still victim of his ignorance.Now we are living in same city, he in his Banglow and me in a rented house in poor condition. He never ask about my welfare even through a pone call. Now i have to ask, in these conditions how can i fulfill my obligations towards his rights as it is stated in Islam teachings, whereas i am constantly and badly being ignored by him.
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 
is His slave and Messenger.
A husband is obliged to spend on his two wives and be just between them in staying overnight with them. Also, he is obliged to be just between his children and he should gift them equally in the same manner he likes that they would be equally kind and dutiful to him. In case he is not just between his children, this may be a reason for them to cut ties with him; for more benefit, please refer to Fataawa 90784, 88357 and 100312.
Therefore, if your father was not just between your mother and his second wife, or that he favoured your step-children over you, or that he was negligent to you in regard to your rights of nurturing you, spending on you, protecting you and so forth, then he is sinful. However, you are still obliged to be kind and dutiful to him. That is because he is your father and he was the reason for your existence in this life. Indeed, Allaah made it an obligation on the children to be kind and dutiful to their parents even if they are non-Muslims who try to lead them astray. Allaah Says (what means): {But if they endeavour to make you associate with Me that of which you have no knowledge, do not obey them but accompany them in [this] world with appropriate kindness.}[Quran 31:15] If they are Muslims, then it is more appropriate to be obliged to be kind and dutiful to them even if they were not good. For more benefit, please refer to Fataawa 84942 and 82254.
With regard to what you mentioned about your father that he arranged your marriage according to his will, if you mean that he forced you to marry someone whom you did not like, then he did what he had no right to do. It is not permissible for a father to force his son to marry someone whom he does not like and the son is not obliged to accept it if he does not like.
Finally, we do not understand what you mean by the attention that you want from your father. Now, you are 25 years old and it is most likely that your father is in a condition where he needs your attention because of being advanced in age and not you needing his attention. In any case, even if your father is negligent about your right, you are not permitted to be negligent about his right as we previously mentioned.
Allaah Knows best.
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