Full Lecture Transcript (Cleaned)
Parents, spouses, and divorce pressure — 0:01
uh brother uh talats uh from kashmir uh emails masha'allah i'm very happy we have our kashmiri brothers and sisters watching me allah make it easy for uh all of you and uh he says that he got married and now his parents are having issues with his wife and his parents are strongly pressuring him to divorce and his parents mentioned that ibn umar radhiallahu was told by his father um to divorce his wife and he ended up divorcing his wife and so now the parents are bringing this up and he is saying is he sinful for not obeying his parents because he wishes to remain with his wife the response to this is subhanallah where does one begin this is one of our biggest issues and problems when it comes to marriage is the in-laws of both sides sometimes they interfere too much and parents want to live their dreams through their children not realizing that their children are no longer children not realizing that their children are now adults not realizing that they themselves would never have accepted such interference when they were at that age and this is subhanallah this is the bane of humanity you know as the saying goes every you know mother-in-law at one point in time was in fact a daughter-in-law right and yet when the tables turn a lot of times it changes and the same goes for father as well that every you know father-in-law was at one point in time a son-in-law you know but subhanallah this is allah in our our weakness of humanity subhanallah how quickly we forget that when we were are in positions of weakness we think and act differently when we get to positions of power we forget and this is the general rule it's not just a father-in-law mother-in-law it's even when it comes to politicians and kings or princes or rich versus poor that we forget how it used to be and now we get a sense of arrogance and pride and whatnot so this is our weakness we ask allah's forgiveness now the son is saying that the parents are putting pressure that obedience to their parents is obligatory indeed obedience to the parents is generally obligatory no question about that however generally not unconditionally our prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam said there is no obedience to a created being when it comes to disobeying one of the rights of allah you have to realize dear husband that now you have the rights of your father and mother and you have the rights of another lady that you have married that is called your wife you cannot ignore any of these rights at the expense of the others you have to balance all of these rights you have to balance them you cannot neglect the rights of your parents but neither can the rights of your parents infringe on the rights of your spouse because each one now has a haqq on you he says in his famous book the famous book of you know principles of what he has chosen in pharmaksims he says it is obligatory on every person to listen to his parents whenever it does not involve a sin even if the parents are not righteous however listen to bin tamiya this is when they command the child or the son to do something that will be beneficial to them and not harmful to him so when the parents say that we don't have anybody to help us you know bring food to our house you know it is obligatory for the son or daughter to figure out how to bring food to them if they cannot go outside how to take care of them if he's able to do so this becomes wajib because this is a benefit to them and there's no immediate harm on him but when the parents when the parents command something that is harmful to the son or daughter in this case and there's no benefit going back to them immediately in this case it is not obligatory to listen to the parents the parents are not unconditional they're not walking gaza whatever they say you must listen to no the parents have a reasonable right of obedience if it becomes unreasonable we do not pay attention to the parents and therefore if they are asking for something unreasonable and generally speaking generally speaking the parents getting involved in the marriage is unreasonable this is the default this is just the default there might be some exceptions sometimes a spouse is very abusive and the other spouse doesn't see and the parents and relatives are all saying to the spouse hey you need to get out you need to do that and for whatever reason he or she doesn't see this so that's a different thing but the default is that the the the reasons that the parents have are not who cares if the parents don't like you know the spouses the marriage is gonna take place uh that has taken place there might be children involved it's the two that are living together that actually have to deal with the primary repercussions of each other so if a third party if an uncle an aunt a parent comes and says i don't like you know the spouse okay you only visit once a week once a month once a year it's the two of them that have to live together and therefore they do not have to listen to the parents in this regard in fact as for this issue of ibn umar and um this is a famous famous incident indeed it did happen but you know imam ahmad ibn humble was asked about this exact issue that a man came and said that my father wants me to divorce my my my wife and my father is quoting umar about his son eben um because it did happen that you know had an issue with his daughter-in-law and we don't know the details and ibn umr basically was basically the processor sided with the father and said to divorce here so we don't know the the details of that but there is no doubt that that reason must have been an islamic one not that i don't like the lady there must have been an islamic reason that for whatever reason ibirama was not seeing the issue at hand and therefore he was told to divorce when imam ahmad was asked about this exact same scenario a man came and says my father is quoting he basically said to him when you have a father like um then you listen to him basically he's them paraphrasing like your father is not um the level of knowledge and taqwa and iman that your father has cannot be there is no comparison so when your father becomes then you listen to um to divorce your wife otherwise if we were to open this door dear brothers and sisters no marriage on earth would remain because it is the default in our human weakness it is the default subhanallah that parents are not satisfied with the spouses of their children even if they have chosen them by the way why because they think my son deserves better my daughter deserved better this is their own standard and this is human nature right oh we were better than this you could have had somebody or she could have had somebody better subhanallah it's not your life to live anymore it's not your life one of our biggest problems is parents interfering in the marriages of their children thinking that their children are children they are no longer children they are now full-fledged adults once they are married they're standing on their feet it's not your business to interfere yes if there is genuine harm or an un-islamic character or something of this nature you should explain and explain the reason explain the reason that this is harmful to you to your health he or she is abusing you he or she is doing something that is not good for islam you know going behind your back and doing something that's going to harm you et cetera et cetera explain your reasons and then bring other people involved as well don't just say i don't like the girl i don't like the boy he's not good enough that's not your business to decide now the marriage has taken place and it is their life to live and therefore dear brother talat you do not have to listen to your parents when it comes to this issue it is not obligatory to listen to your parents when they're asking for that which is unreasonable or that which is harmful to you and to your other obligations and allah subhanahu wa ta'ala knows best foreign