Rational Basis for Being Good to Parents and Enjoining Family Ties

*Rational Basis for Being Good to Parents and Enjoining Family Ties*

RIGHTS DUE TO SOMEONE WHO tenders a favour to you are not hidden to any person of logical discourse. After , Allah Almighty, there is no one who has realised a greater favour to any person than his own parents. His mother bore him in extreme difficulty while carrying him, and at the time of giving birth she went through great hardship and trouble. She did her

best in bringing him up and spent sleepless nights tending to him ignoring all her other wants and desires. She gave preference to | him over herself each and every time.

His father, in addition to being a cause for his existence, also gave him love, compassion and brought him up by working hard and spending on him. Thus a logical person knows the right of the one who renders a favour to him and tries to repay such favor. 

Not to recognise the right of the one who effects a favour is (from the) most despicable quality, especially if the person denies such  a right and furthermore, repays it with evil.

A person who is dutiful and good to his parents should know that no matter how good he is to them he can never repay or thank

them (for their rights and privileges).

1)  Zur'ah Ibn Ibrahim narrated that aman came to ‘Umar Ibn al-Khattab (radtyAllahu ‘anhu) and asked, ‘I have a mother

who is very old and she is only able to fulfil her needs by riding on my back. I even wash her and turn my face away.

Have I fulfilled her right?’ He replied, ‘No’. The man said, ‘Did I not carry her on my back and put myself at her service?’ ‘Umar replied, ‘She used to do that for you while wishing you live, but you (do it) wishing that she dies.’

‘Umar (radiyAllahu ‘anhu) saw a man carrying his mother like a sack on his back and taking her around the Ka‘bah for dawaf saying . the following couplet, ‘I carry my mother while she was the load bearer who used to feed me milk and sweet things’. Seeing this ‘Umar remarked, ‘For me to have my mother now and do what you did is more beloved to me than red camels.’

2) Aman said to ‘Abdullah Ibn ‘Umar (radiyAlahu ‘anhuma), I carried my mother on my back all the way from Khorasan

until I made her complete the rites of Hay. Do you think I have repaid her?’ He said, ‘No, not even for one contraction!’

The closeness of relatives can be likened to the closeness of parents to a child and a person should not be neglectful of such

rights.