Rights of Parents
It is absolutely impossible for any writer to depict the
parents’
grandeur and favors on their sons, since they are the supports of merits
and
success. Parents have done their best and suffered a variety of
difficulties for
sake of supervising their sons . Mothers, for instance, have suffered
the
burdens of pregnancy, giving birth, suckling, and the troubles of
education.
Fathers, on the other hand, have stood the hurdles of seeking earnings
for sake
of saving the means of good livelihood for their sons. They have also
engaged
themselves in the troubles of educating and bringing up sons and
preparing
comfortable lives. Suffering all these difficulties, parents have been
feeling
happy, without expecting praise or reward from their sons. Out of their
abundant love for their sons, parents have worked diligently for making
them precede
others in fields of virtue so that they will be the objects of
admiration. This
nature is in violation of man’s tempers. From this cause, parents’
favors are
regarded as the greatest after God’s, and their rights against their
sons are
very considerable.
Filial Piety
It is binding on noble sons to appreciate their parents’ favors
by rewarding them with the most deserved form of loyalty, reverence, respect,
piety, good turn, nice treatment, and suitable honoring:
“(Concerning his parents), We advised the man, whose mother bears
him with great pain and breast-feeds him for two years, to give thanks to Me
first and then to them, to Me all things proceed. If they try to force you to
consider things equal to Me, which you cannot justify, equal to Me, do not obey
them. Maintain lawful relations with them in this world and follow the path of
those who turn in repentance to Me. To Me you will all return and I shall tell
you all that you have done. (31:14-5)”
“Your Lord has ordained that you must not worship anything other
than Him and that you must be kind to your parents. If either or both of your
parents should become advanced in age, do not express to them words which show
your slightest disappointment. N ever yell at them but always speak to them with
kindness. Be humble and merciful towards them and say, "Lord, have mercy upon
them as they cherished me in my childhood." (17:23-4)”
The two aforementioned Quranic texts have expressed the parents’
favoring and lofty standing and the necessity of rewarding them by means of many
thanks and treating them with suitable piety and kindness. In the first Verse,
God, after thanking Him, orders to show gratitude to them, and in the second
Verse, He attaches kindness to them to worshipping Him. This is in fact the
highest degree of endearment and honoring.
The Prophet (s) said to the man who asked him for advice: “Do not
associate anything with Allah (in worship) even if you are burnt with fire and
tortured unless your heart is full of faith. You should, too, obey your parents
whether they are alive or dead, even if they order you to leave your family and
your property. This is surely a part of faith.”
“If you are pious (to parents), Paradise will be your share. If
you are impious (to them), Hell will be your share.”
Imam al-Baqir (a) said: “Allah does not give permission in three
things: keeping the trust of both the pious and the sinful, fulfilling the
pledge that is given to both the pious and the sinful, and treating parents
kindly whether they are pious or sinful.”
Imam as-Sadiq (a) said: “He who desires that Allah will save him
from agonies of death must regard his relatives and treat his parents
obediently. Allah will surely save him who carries such traits from suffering
the agonies of death and will also save him from harshness of poverty as long
as he is alive.”
Imam as-Sadiq (a) narrated that one of the Prophet’s foster
sisters visited him. He received her so warmly, laid his personal quilt, asked
her to sit on it, and went on facing her and smiling in her face. When she left,
her brother came. The Prophet (s) did not treat him as same as his sister. When
the man left, the attendants asked him why he had treated the woman so warmly,
but had not done the same with her brother. He answered: “She was more obedient
to her parents than he was.”
Since mothers exert giant efforts and suffer insensitive ordeals
for sake of their sons, the Islamic Sharia has conferred upon them with greater
deal of obligatory care and piety:
Imam as-Sadiq (a) narrated that, once, a man asked the Prophet
(s), ‘whom must I treat piously first, God’s Messenger?’ The Prophet (s)
answered, ‘you must first treat your mother piously.’ ‘Then?’ asked the man.
‘Your mother,’ answered the Prophet (s).
‘Then?’ asked the man. ‘Your mother,’ answered the Prophet (s).
‘Then?’ asked the man. ‘Your mother,’ answered the Prophet (s). ‘Then?’ asked
the man. ‘Then comes your father,’ answered the Prophet (s).
Ibrahim bin Muhazzim narrated:
After I had left Imam as-Sadiq, one night, I came to my house in
Medina and quarreled with my mother who was living with me. The next morning, I
visited him after I had offered the Fajr Prayer. He addressed to me, before I
said anything, “Abu Muhazzim, w hat was your matter with Khalida? Last night,
you addressed bad words to her. You should have known that her womb was the
abode in which you resided, her lap was the cradle in which you slept, and her
breast was the bowl from which you drank.”
“Yes,” I answered, “I have known all these.”
“Then,” said the Imam (a), “You should not be coarse with her any
more.”
Imam as-Sejjad (a) said in his Treatise of Rights:
“The right of your mother is that you know that she carried you
where no one carries anyone, she gave to you the fruit of her heart that which
no one gives to anyone, and she protected you with her hearing, sight, hand,
leg, hair, and skin as well as all her organs. She was highly delighted, happy,
eager, and enduring the harm, pains, heaviness, and grief until the hand of
power saved her from you and took you out to this earth. She did not care if she
went hungry as long as you ate, if she was naked as long as you were clothed, if
she was thirsty as long as you drank, is she was in the sun as long as you were
in the shade, if she was miserable as long as you were happy, and if she was
deprived of sleeping as long as you were resting. Her abdomen was y our
container, her lap your seat, her breast your container of drink, and her soul
was your fort. She protected you from heat and cold. You should thank her for
all that. You will not be able to show her gratitude unless through Allah’s help
and giving success.”
Filial piety becomes nicer and more influential when it is done
to the aged parents who are in exigent need for affection:
“If either or both of your parents should become advanced in age,
do not express to them words which show your slightest disappointment –such as
‘ugh’-. Never yell at them but always speak to them with kindness. Be humble and
merciful towards them and say, "Lord, have mercy upon them as they cherished me
in my childhood." (17:24)”
It is related that a man asked the Prophet (s), “God’s Messenger,
I am treating my aged parents as same as their treatment to me when I was child.
Have I now performed their rights that are imposed upon me?” The Prophet (s)
answered: “No, you have not, because, when they treated you kindly during your
childhood, they wanted you to live. But, now, while you are treating them
kindly, you wish they would die.”
Ibrahim ibn Shuaib narrated: I told Imam as-Sadiq (a) that I used
to carry my aged and weak father when he wanted to relieve nature. The Imam
commented: “If you can do more than this, you must do it. You should feed him
bit by bit, because he will guard you (from Hell) in the morrow.”
Filial piety is not restricted to the living parents. It becomes
more necessary for the dead parents, because they are in need for piety more
than the alive do.
The Prophet (s) said: “On the Day of Resurrection, a man who
treats his parents piously after their departure of life will be regarded as the
chief of the pious.”
Imam al-Baqir (a) said: “A servant who is pious to his parents
during their lifetimes may be, later on, decided as impious. This may occur when
such a servant neglects settling the debts of their dead parents and neglects
seeking Allah’s forgiveness for them. Likewise, a servant who is impious to his
parents during their lifetimes may be decided as pious. This occurs when such a
servant settles the debts of their parents, after their death, and seeks Allah’s
forgiveness for them.”
Imam as-Sadiq said: “Nothing of the rewarding follows the dead
except three: a continuous alms that was dedicated during lifetime, an
instruction of right guidance that is followed by others, and a righteous son
who supplicates to Allah for him.”
Filial Impiety
Ingratitude and bad turn are ill manners denied by reason and law
and disapproved by sound conscience. Through this criterion, we can feel the
hideousness and horribleness of filial impiety, which is a crime taking to Hell.
In addition to its being in violation of human principles, reason, and law,
filial impiety is an indication to emotionlessness, faithlessness, and fading of
human values. Parents exert giant efforts for educating and securing every means
that achieves material and mental prosperity f or sons who, whatever they do,
cannot appreciate their endeavors. How is it then possible for sons to neglect
such emotions and repay with mistreatment and impiety?
The Prophet (s) said: “The punishment for three sins is
immediate and not postponed to the Hereafter: filial impiety, oppression against
people, and ingratitude.”
Imam al-Baqir (a) said: “My father, once, saw a man leaning to
his father’s arm while they were walking. Out of his detestation of this scene,
my father did not speak to him forever.”
Imam as-Sadiq (a) said: “If Allah had known something more
trivial than ‘ugh’, He would have used
it in warning against filial impiety. To look at parents sharply is a sort of
impiety to them.”
Disadvantages of Filial Impiety
Serious disadvantages are expected from filial impiety. One of
these is that the impious son will unavoidably be the subject of his sons’
impiety.
Al-Asmaee conveyed the following story from a Beduin:
I, once, decided to wander in the quarters searching for the most
pious of people and the most impious (to his parents).
One day, I passed by an old man in whose neck there was a rope,
and he was trying to pull a bucket from a well, while it was so hot that even
camels were trying to find shadows to sit in. Furthermore, a young man with a
rope as thick as a strap in the ha nd was beating that old man on the back so
cruelly. Astonished by such a scene, I shouted at the young, “Do you not fear
God when you treat this weak old man so cruelly? The rope that is in his neck is
a sufficient suffering for him, why do you then add to it the suffering of your
beating?”
The young man answered: “What is more is that this man is my
father!”
I replied: “God may show you no goodness for this!”
He said: “Keep silent! He used to do the same thing that you see
to his father. Likewise, his father used to do the same thing to his father, and
so on.”
I said to myself: “This is unquestionably the most impious to his
parents,” and went on wandering.
One day, I saw a young man hanging a frail to his neck, and saw
in that frail an old man who was as small as a young bird. That young man used
to take down that old man from time to time and feed him like birds. I asked the
young man: “What is this?”
He answered: “He is my father. As he became senile, I am taking
care of him.”
Hence, I said to myself, “This is surely the most pious to his
parents.”
One of the disadvantages of filial impiety is that the impious
individuals live in incessant unhappiness and discomfort because their parents
curse them.
The Prophet (s) said: “Beware of fathers’ imprecations, for they
are sharper than swords.”
The impious, also, will certainly suffer horrible agonies of
death.
Imam as-Sadiq (a) narrated: One day, the Prophet (s) attended
before a young man who was suffering death struggles. He tried severally to
instruct him to say ‘la ilaha illa (a)llah—there is no god but Allah’, but the
man became tongue-tied.
The Prophet (s) asked the lady who was standing nearer to him:
“Is this man’s mother present?”
She answered: “Yes, it is I.”
The Prophet (s) asked: “Are you dissatisfied with him?”
She answered: “Yes, I am. I have not talked to him for six
years.”
The Prophet (s) then asked her to be pleased with him.
She answered: “As long as the Messenger of God is pleased with
him, I am pleased, too.”
Then, the Prophet (s) instructed the dying man to say ‘la ilaha
illa (a)llah’, and, finally, he could speak it.
The Prophet (s) asked him: “What is before you, now?”
The dying man said: “I now can see an ugly black man with dirty
clothes and bad smell. He is prevailing over me.”
The Prophet (s) instructed: “Say: O You Who accepts the few and
pardons the much, accept my few (deed) and pardon my very much (evildoing). You
are surely the All-forgiving the All-merciful.”
The young man said it.
Then the Prophet (s) asked: “Now, what do you see?”
The man said: “I now can see a white, pretty, sweet-smelling man
come to me, while the black one left.”
The Prophet (s) ordered him to repeat reciting the previous
supplication, and the man did.
The Prophet (s) then asked him what he could see.
The man answered: “I can see only the white man coming to me.”
Filial impiety is a grand sin for which God threatens hell.
It is worth mentioning that fathers are required to train and
educate their sons by means of wisdom so as to save them from impiety to them.
The Prophet (s) said: “Like their sons, parents are required to
avoid treating their righteous sons impiously.”
“Allah may curse the parents who cause their sons to treat them
impiously. Allah may have mercy upon the parents who cause their sons to treat
them piously.”
Rights of Sons
The righteous sons are the adornment of this life and the dearest
and most precious hopes. Thus, the Ahl ul-Bayt (a), as well as people of wisdom
and letters, praised them.
The Prophet (s) said: “The righteous son is one of the roses of
Paradise.”
“To have a righteous son is a sign of happiness.”
Referring to a dead, a wise man said: “If this dead has a son, he
is alive then, lest he is surely dead.”
Not only do parents benefit by their righteous sons during their
lifetimes, but also they are advantageous for them after their death.
(Imam as-Sadiq (a) related:) The Prophet (s) said: Jesus (a),
once, passed by a grave whose occupant was tortured. A year later, he passed by
the same grave, but found that torture was ceased. He asked the Lord about this,
and he was answered that the so n of the occupant of this grave paved a public
way and had the custody of an orphan; therefore, Allah forgave the father for
the son’s good deeds.
(The Prophet commented) The heritage that Allah gains from the
believer is a son who worships Him after the father’s death.
(Imam as-Sadiq (a) then recited the Quranic Verse that tells the
words of Zechariah the prophet)
“I am afraid of what my kinsmen will do after (my death) and my
wife is barren. Lord, grant me a son who will be my heir and the heir of the
family of Jacob. Lord, make him a person who will please you" (19:5-6).”
Righteousness of sons requires excessive attention in fields of
education. On that account, it is obligatory upon fathers to train their sons on
bases of virtue so that they, later on, will harvest pleasure through their
commitment to good behavior. In t his regard, Imam as-Sejjad (a) said:
“The right of your child is that you should know that he is from
you and will be ascribed to you, through both his good and his evil, in the
immediate affairs of this world. You are responsible for what has been entrusted
to you, such as educating him in good conduct, pointing him in the direction of
his Lord, and helping him to obey Him. So, act toward him with the action of one
who knows that he will be rewarded for good doing toward him and punished for
evildoing. In his affairs, act like the actions of those who adorn their
children with their good deeds and those who are justified before their Lord as
long as they did well in the discipline and the custody of their sons.”
Fathers are responsible for disciplining their sons righteously,
otherwise they expose them to various dangers of social and religious
corruption. Fathers are recommended to begin with guiding their sons to
uprightness from tender age, because they, in s uch ages, are more responsive
than being older. Moreover, fathers must begin educating their sons before their
eyes are opened on ill habits and immoralities, lest the mission becomes very
complicated.
Wisdom of Discipline
Fathers are required to be moderate with their sons. They should
neither subject them by means of excessive rudeness since this may cause them to
suffer mental complexities, nor should they neglect punishing them when they
show shortcomings, since this m ay lead them to disobey. It is said that ‘he who
feels safety from punishment will behave improperly.’
The best method of education then is to rectify sons step by
step, by way of encouraging them doing charity through words of praise and
rewarding, and advising them not to misbehave. If this is useless, fathers
should move to the stage of reproach. If this is also useless, then comes the
role of punishment and harsh reproach.
The Child’s First School
The child’s first school is home, where he grows up, his
personality rises to perfection, and traits mature. The parents’ behavior and
morals have the greatest role in the child’s perfection and maturity of
personality. As a result, they must behave as i deal examples of their children
so that their traits will reflect on the children’s mentalities.
Course of Education
The first step in educating children is to lead them to the
etiquettes of sitting to the dining-tables, such as washing the hands before and
after each meal, eating with the right hand, chewing the food properly, avoiding
looking in the faces of the other eaters, satisfying themselves with the
available sustenance, and the like morals. Then, children should be trained on
the rules of speech and should be trained to avoid obscenity, backbiting,
gossip, and the like indecencies. They should also be trained on good attention
and not to interrupt speakers.
The most important point in educating children, however, is to
plant the religious concepts in their mentalities and bring them up on belief
through teaching them the principles and branches of the religion in such a
style befitting their intellectual levels, so that they will have acquaintance
of their creed and doctrine and they will be immunized against the deviant
suspects arisen by the enemies of Islam:
“Believers, save yourselves and your families from the fire which
is fueled by people and stones and is guarded by stern angels who do not disobey
Allah's commands and do whatever they are ordered to do (66:6).”
Fathers must also train their children on practicing the high
moral standards, such as truthfulness, faithfulness, patience, and
self-reliance, and to observe manners of intimate association with people, such
as regarding the old, compassioning the young , thanking the favorer,
overlooking the wrongdoer, and treating kindly the poor. Besides, children must
be prevented from associating with the evils and the deviant and encouraged
associating with the polite. Children in fact imitate their friends’ moralities
and natures shortly.
The Prophet (s) said: “Man imitates his friend. You therefore
must consider the one you befriend.”
People have witnessed and suffered many tragedies that occurred
to the young who went astray and fell in depths of vices and corruption just
because they befriended impolite and evil individuals. Consequently, fathers
must search for the talents and qualifications of their sons and, then, guide
them in the fields of life that best befit their physical and mental abilities
and skills. This will certainly contribute in helping them face burdens of life
and save comfortable livings
