The Importance of Family Ties in Islam Shaykh Dr Yasir Qadhi

Alhamdulillah. for We always begin our with this ayah from and it is something that is from the sunnah of our prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam that he would typically begin his sermons with this that is called and included in it is the first verse of and this verse goes as follows. or you believe fear Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala fear Allahel who created you from single soul and from that soul created its mate and fear Allah so it's repeated twice in the verse fear Allah in whose name you ask each other for what you want and also have tawa of alham Now this ayah has caused our scholars to try to interpret what does it mean that Allah is saying fear the what does it mean to have of and what is aram is the plural of and translates as quite literally the womb. You call the womb of woman, you call it arim. But of course, there is deeper connotation and that is the connotation of family. The connotation of family. The Arabic word for family and for kinship is alim from the word for womb. Because obviously all members of family, they go back to one person or one couple. every tribe, every group of cousins and second cousins and third cousins, eventually they all go back to one womb. And so the concept of family in Arabic comes from the word womb alim. And Allah says in the Quran, have tawa of Allah in whose names you ask things for and have ta of. What does it mean to have tawa of? Our scholars have said this verse can be understood in one of two ways. Number one. Allah is saying have tawa of Allah in whose name you ask people to give you things. Meaning what? You say ask you by Allah help me. By Allah ask you to help me. And in the name of the family you ask people to help you. So this means you will go to your brother your cousin you will say for the sake of family we are brother we are cousin need your help. So Allah is reminding that the family unit takes care of each other. Another interpretation is be conscious of the rights of Allah and be conscious of the rights of the family. Have tawa of Allah and have tawa of the rights of the family. And both of these interpretations are valid in the Quran. And what they imply is that the family has high privilege second to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. We all know in the Quran that Allah puts the rights of the parents after Allah. This is true. But the reality is that the rights of the family come after the rights of Allah. And within the family, the parents have the most right. So in the Quran you will find verses that it's Allah and then the parents but you will also find verses that it's Allah and then the family and there's no contradiction because who deserves the most amongst the family it is the parents for example in Allah subhana wa ta'ala says remember when Allah took the covenant with the children of Israel what was this covenant what was this covenant that they worship Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala and they be good to their parents and their family and the orphans and the poor in the exact same thing. the same essential commandment that Allah has commanded you to worship him alone and don't associate partners with him that you be good to your parents and to the relatives and the orphans and the poor and the close neighbors and the far neighbors and the companions and the traveler and the verse goes on and on. Notice Allah mentions family before even mentioning orphans. Allah mentions family before even mentioning the fukur and msak worship Allah be good to parents and fulfill the ties of the family and be good to the orphans and be good. So notice where does family come. After Allah and the parents comes the family and as we said the family includes the parents and in fact we learn from the of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam that in reality this is of the very earliest commandments came from Yemen to Mecca and he was searching for the truth and it's long story we mentioned it in the this is before the prophet began preaching publicly and he heard that there's somebody hiding in Mecca or hiding means he's not public not hiding that he doesn't the people don't see him that he's not public in his message that is preaching separate message and sobbas he found out who the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam was and he went up to him and he said what are you so the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam said am nebi so he said what is abi he's never heard of so the prophet said Allah has sent me Allah has sent me and the prophet andb has said what Has Allah sent you with? What has Allah sent you with? So the prophet sallallah.aii wasallam said Allah has sent me with what? Number one that we worship him alone and we destroy idols and number two that we fulfill the ties of kinship with andan. This was the only commandment at this point in time. There's no other commandment. There is no salah and zaka. There is no HJ. What has Allah sent me with? Number one, that he be worshiped alone and no idols. And number two, that we be good to that we be good with those of our kinship and our ties of relationship. And if you see how clear this understanding was when you look at other incidents of the when the Muslims migrate to and the nas calls and he says what is your message? What has the prophet told you? And once again we find the same paragraph. He has sent sent us to worship one god and to avoid false gods and to be good to our family and to speak the truth and it goes on and on. But the second commandment the same goes in front of the emperor of Rome, the Roman emperor when he hears of the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam and he calls Abu Sufyan and he says what does he teach you? What is the prophet's message? And Abu Sufyan at the time was not even Muslim. But he knew what the message of Islam was. He said he is teaching us to worship one God and to be good to our family. Look at how the message of Islam was perceived by the early converts and even by the early rejectors. Both Jaffar and Abu Sufyan. Jaffar is an early convert. Abu Sufyan at the time is an enemy. The both of them summarized Islam with the same paragraph. Worship one God and be good to the and as we as we said it means to be good to the entire family not just parents, siblings, cousins, uncles and aunts and the extended relatives. And the in fact the concept of fulfilling the ties of kinship is so strong that Allah commands the early Muslims to guard the relatives more than to guard the relationship with the muajur and which is the highest status of the sahaba. Allah explicitly says that the family ties are even stronger than the ties of the muajur and the ansar and your love for them. Imagine that the family unit and the family ties are stronger than the love we should feel for the muajir and the and Allah mentions this in multiple verses in the Quran of them that Allah subhana wa ta'ala mentions The prophet sallallah.aii wasallam is closer to the believers. He cares more about the believers than they care about themselves. In other words, the prophetam cares more about you than you care about yourself. And his wives are their mothers. family members. They have to have stronger ties with one another than even the and the muajin should have ties with them. Now the context of the verse is primarily about inheritance primarily but the wording is very clear. The family unit is supposed to have very strong ties. And already mentioned that in Arabic the word for family comes from the word for womb and that is alim. But all of you also know when you hear the word that another thing comes to mind and that is the concept of mercy. It is from the same root and this is not coincidence. In hadith in Sah Bkari, in hadith in Sahed Bkari, our prophet sallallah.aii wasallam said, "When Allah created the creation and he finished creating the creation, Alim stood up." Now, how could the womb stand up? How could the family stand up? This is from we do not know. The family, the concept of family stood up. Alim stood up. And here we translate Alim as the concept of family. family stood up and family said to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala this is the time now to seek refuge in you and to get the status that deserve what is the status have so when Allah created the creation everything has been created family stands up however we don't understand how and family the concept asks Allah now that I've been created want to know my what is my in your eyes and Allah subhanana wa ta'ala says Aren't you content that shall associate with those who associate with you? The Arabic is very powerful. Whoever associates with one's family, shall associate with them. And whoever breaks away from their family, shall break away from that person. Aren't you happy? Aren't you content that shall be associating with those who associate with you? Whoever fulfills the ties of family, shall be with that person. And whoever breaks off the ties of family, shall break off from that person. This hadith is in Bkari and in Sah Muslim, the most authentic book of hadith. What powerful hadith and what dangerous warning to those who cut off the ties of the family. In similar version slightly different inahmi and others the hadith goes as follows that the Allah subhana wa tala says so the prophet says that Allah says am Allah and am and created the so there's clear usage of the term alman and am alman man and created the family and derived my name from the so from the concept of family Allah is saying derive my name alman in other words the name alman and the concept of family are linked together not just linguistically intentionally by Allah subhana wa ta'ala the word for family and the most powerful name of Allah after Allah is the name Alman and Allah says my name is Alman and from Alman created Alim and from Alim extracted my name in other words the two are linked together family and Alman are linked together and that is why in the same hadith Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala says that whoever connects with Alim has connected with me alman and whoever cuts off from Alim has cut off from me alman. So if you want the rah from you have to be connected to the rahim. And if you don't want the rah from then cut off from the rahim. This is what the hadith is saying. If you want Allah's you have to be connected to the the concept of connecting with your kinship. And in fact, cutting off from one's family is one of the very few acts in the Quran that brings about Allah's Allah's is the most severe punishment. It is worse than Allah's. Not everybody who suffers is under Allah's. Hear me carefully. Not everybody who suffers is under Allah's because there will be many who will undergo but then be forgiven after that. There will be many who will be punished in jannam and that is Allah's but then they will be forgiven and they will enter jenna. But there is category that is worse than Allah's and that is Allah's and Allah's is the ultimate punishment. Who will be given to? Well, the Quran mentions around dozen or so just dozen. And one of them, one of the categories upon whom Allah's is given is the one who cuts off the Allah says in the Quran, the ones who break off Allah's covenant so to commit the major sins. Our scholars have said, "And the ones who cut the ties that Allah has commanded them to fulfill and this is the family." So the one who cuts off the ties of the family and the one who spreads in the world, he spreads evil in the world, his genocide and evil in the world. These are the three people Allah says they have Allah's and they shall have the worst abode in the hereafter. So of the people whom Allah has cursed in the Quran is the one who cuts off from the family. Now the question arises what does it mean to fulfill the ties of kinship? What does mean? The Quranic term and the hadith term is and by the way gave audah here recently. What is the very first that our prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam gave when he entered Medina? gave whole about that that the prophetam said that people spread the salam and feed the hungry and be connected to your relatives and feed and pray when everybody is asleep. You shall enter Jenna in salam. Notice of the earliest commandments even in Medina. What does it mean? And means to connect. Means to connect and as we said means the family. So means to remain connected with your extended family in manner that is acceptable and according to the culture of one's time. So what this means is that you are in touch with your family. It means that you are showing them love. You're showing them kindness. You're showing them concern. It means that you're aware of what's going on. of the one of our scholars of the past said that giving salam to your relatives is of the acts of simply giving salam and of course in those days there was no phone so giving salamis you had to visit them so visiting your relatives is of the highest acts of simply going out of your way to visit your relatives is an act of and of course in our times we have alhamdulillah the phones and the messages and Facebook being connected with one's relatives is sign of im and it is part and parcel of what all of us are commanded to do. Now the question also arises to what level is necessary and mandatory and the response comes that the did not come with the specific code and guidelines. The came with general rules and this varies from culture to culture and time to time and place to place. Obviously, our connections to our brothers and sisters, our blood brothers and sisters should be much stronger than our connection with our first cousins. And our connection with our first cousins is stronger than our connection with our second cousins. And it is human nature that after while you lose track of your third and fourth cousins. This is all something that is understandable. But definitely our actual siblings, brothers and sisters, they have the most right over us after our parents and their children and our first cousins. And generally every one of us is aware of our first cousins. We know all of our first cousins. No matter how many we have, generally we're aware of them. There should be contact. There should be the occasional phone call. There should be the invitation over to happy occasions, which is what culturally is accepted and the norm. And many of us are aware of good quantity of second cousins as well. And again, the second cousin is not like the first cousin. But the point is that as the strength of the relationship is stronger, so too theatim should be stronger as well. And of the greatest acts of is to take care financially of our family and extended family, those that are in need. If you have anyone in your extended family, your cousins, your second cousins, your third cousins, if you have anybody who is deserving of charity, then find them and give them money over anybody else. In hadith, our prophet sallallah.aii wasallam said that giving to the poor is but giving to the relatives is both and reported in giving to the poor is that's good. give to the poor but giving tob the the the the family this is both and being good to your family and Allah subhana wa tala mentions in the Quran and with this verse we always conclude the what is the last verse everybody says around the world with with what number three giving money to the relatives Allah is commanding you to give money to your relatives who need money. So especially when it comes to even when it comes to zakat and you don't have to tell your cousin your second cousin you're giving zakah and it is not just permissible it is to give your extended family your zak and your now you cannot give zaka to your mother and father but you can give zaka to your your siblings and your cousins and your aunts and uncles. the general rule is you can give zakat to them but not to your mother and father and not to your son and daughter. But other than this yes you may give zak and of course you can give to everyone. So means to show love to show kindness to show compassion to be in touch with them to invite them for one needs to be invited to visit them whenever possible and to help them financially. How far back does go? Well there is no limit in the end of the day. Every one of us is connected with everybody else. And want everybody to let that point sink in. Even though we know it, but every person you meet in this whole world, even your worst enemy and your best friend and your acquaintance and your colleague, at some point in time, the two of you shared the same womb. At some point in time, there was one person in the womb of mother, in the womb of woman, and the both of you are linked to that person. At some point in time, every one of us is linked to one another. So there is no technical term that after the third cousin it is cut off. In fact in very powerful hadith very strong beautiful hadith our prophet predicted to the Muslims you are going to conquer you're going to conquer Egypt. This conquering took place 10 years after the prophet died but he predicted it. you're going to conquer. And the hadith goes on until he said, "When you conquer it, be good to the people whom you conquer because they have status. They have protection status and they have family status with you." Now, what has the Egyptian family status got to do with the Qurashi and the Arab family status? hundreds of generations ago. Who is the mother of the Quraysh? It is Haj. And where is Haj from? Hajar is from Egypt. But this is thousands of years ago. Like literally thou we don't even know the number of ancestors. And yet our prophetam said they are related to you. Their blood. They're your blood. Think about that. The Arab race at the time of the prophetam and the Egyptian race have different language, different civilization, different religion. Everything is different. They don't even look the same. Nothing is the same. Thousands of years have gone by from Haj. But what did our prophetam say? Remember they are in the end of the day your extended family. So there is no limit to when it comes to extended family. But obviously the point being that the closer people are then the better and the stronger those ties should be. and practical advice brothers and sisters and speak from my own experience here and it is very very healthy and very interesting and very Islamic project that it is advise all of you to chart out your own relatives and your own family background to chart out your own family tree and to discover who your ancestors were and how you are linked with your extended family. This is project that will increase your own appreciation of your heritage and it will bring family together. You will be amazed. You will caught up third cousin you never knew existed. And as soon as you tell them, am so and so, the son of so and so, the grandson of so- and so. We're linked like this." All of sudden, barriers are are are are you know broken, doors are opened up, and you connect with family and you feel part of family. And speak from my own experience having done this for the last six or seven years. And it is project that has brought me closer together with my extended family. And every one of us should do this. In fact, this is what the Sahabah advised said, "Learn your genealogies, learn your family trees. So that will help you to fulfill the ties of kinship." And amongst the Arabs at the time of the prophet sallallah.aii wasallam, it was considered to be very noble science to know family history and genealogy. And Abu Bakr was respected amongst the Muslims and non-Muslims of his time because he knew the genealogy of all the Arabs. You could ask him of any two Arabs and he would be able to connect them no matter how many generations back it went. And it is amazing that to this day, especially the tribe of Quraysh, you know exactly how any two Qurashes are linked together. when you go back to the books of any Qurashi with another Qurashi, they have preserved their lineage and their history. But in our times, of course, all of this is now becoming lost science. Nonetheless, we should keep it alive. Especially, brothers and sisters, we have broken away from our extended families back home, and we're starting new families over here in America who don't even know, maybe even your first cousins, your children have no idea who they are. So, it is your responsibility to pass that knowledge down and to keep it preserved. And this is of the ways we will come closer to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala. Brothers and sisters, Allah says in the Quran, Give the rights due to your family and give the rights due to the ms and to the wayfairer. That is the best thing to do if you want the pleasure of Allah. And those are the true winners. May Allah subhana wa ta'ala make us of those winners. Allah. Alhamdulillah. Alhamdulillah. Brothers and sisters, every one of us without exception has certain members of our family who are problematic to deal with. And this is the reality of human existence. Sometimes we feel, only have that weird uncle or that harsh cousin or that demeaning aunt. No, every human being is tested with family members that are problematic to our sanity, our calmness. This is the reality. And Allah says in the Quran, "We have made groups of you to be tests to others, we made groups of you to be tests and difficulties to others to see who amongst you will be patient." And no doubt, brothers and sisters, that in dealing with such difficult family members, our iman will be tested. One of the biggest tests of this life is to deal with difficult family members because we are battling between our egos and submission to Allah. Really, that's as simple as that. It is our ego. My uncle said this, I'm not going to forgive him. My cousin did this at the wedding. I'm never going to say salam to again. This is my ego speaking. And we know the commandment of Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala when it comes to family. And it's very difficult to battle one's ego when it comes to the family issues. But this is where iman is demonstrated. Now no doubt caveat here. No doubt if family member is physically harmful to you. We're not asking you know anybody to get physical harm. And no doubt some family members are psychologically so traumatic that it will affect your iman or you feel you will not be able to control your temper. So in those cases when it's psychological it's no doubt that you need to act wisely and perhaps not expose yourself to situation where you will fail. But even if you decide that there's psychological trauma you don't want to be with this family member then make sure that that is temporary intention. You are not allowed to boycott for more than 3 days and boycotting is salam. And in your heart make it your desire that inshallah will heal this over time. some practical advice what to do with difficult family members. Five simple pieces of advice. Number one, number one, think long and hard about the source of the problem and remind the source of the meaning your ego is I'm trying to say, not the actual incident that happened cuz always these incidents happen and remind yourself that the test is not to prove yourself in his or her eyes. The test is to prove yourself in the eyes of Allah. The test is not to come out looking the winner or the loser when it comes to your relative. The test is to come out the winner when it comes to Allah on judgment day. Remind yourself of the verses of the Quran of Alam of the hadith of the prophet about the concept of family and ask yourself, don't you want to come out the winner on judgment day? Number two, give any problem some time. Time heals all wounds. Time heals all wounds. This is of the facts of life. No matter how bitter and angry you are with your cousin today, inshallah one year from now won't be that bad. Two years from now, it will be even better. So give it some time. And is of the greatest, it is of the greatest ironies of life for some bizarre reason that at times of weddings when everybody should be happy, family strife comes up and perhaps the worst arguments take place. And it is the greatest irony ironies of life that at the time of death, families are mended together and wounds are healed. This is of the but why should we wait for death and what if the person you're angry with dies don't wait for janaza to heal wounds with members of family number three number three make dua to Allah subhanahu wa ta'ala to soften your heart and the family member whom you're having problem with ask yourself this if you cannot even make dua to Allah to wound the hearts then you really don't want really it's that simple If you cannot raise your hands to Allah and say, Allah, soften my heart and soften his heart so that we become brothers again, cousins again, uncle and nephew again." If you cannot even raise your hands to Allah and nobody's hearing you, this is in the privacy of your house. And you say, Allah, cleanse my heart and his of any animosity, any jealousy. Let us be friends as we used to be. Let us be friendly as we used to be." If you cannot even make dua to Allah then wallah you do not want. So don't kid yourself and don't fool yourself that somehow he is the worst of the two. Even if he is what do you lose by raising your hands up to Allah and saying Allah guide him and guide me to be close again. What do you lose? And remember what Allah says in the Quran regarding the pagans of Mecca and the Muslims when they embraced Islam the pagans of Makkah and the Quraysh. When they embraced Islam, what does Allah say? You could never have imagined that you would be friendly with those people. If you spent the entire money in this world, you wouldn't have brought those hearts together. But Allah was the one who brought those hearts together. So of the names of Allah, who brings the hearts together. So make dua to Allah with the name and that Allah joins those hearts. Number four and the number five. We're done. Number four, try to begin with positive gesture. Try to begin with gift with something good and be the better of the two. And remember what our prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam said hadith is inahkari. The true the true one who connects with his relatives is not the one who treats the relative the way the relative treats him. If your relative is kind, you're kind. If your relative is mean, you're mean. No, the true The true connector is not the one who treats the same but rather the one who connects when the other has broken off. This hadith is the true connector. The one who does is not the one who treats the same. No, that's not but the one who when your relative cuts off you try to mend and you try to connect. That is the trueam. And last but not least, brothers and sisters, if all else fails, then be selfish and do for your own benefit. And this is completely halal and permissible. What do mean by this? The last hadith we'll mention, our prophet sallallah.aii alaihi wasallam said, "Whoever wishes that Allah gives him longer life and that Allah increases his money and risk and that Allah saves him from an evil death." Now, who amongst us does not want to live longer and live richer and die peaceful death? Think about that. The three greatest worldly incentives that are possible to imagine. Whoever wishes that Allah gives him longer life and more money and good death. Let him be good to his family. Hadith is authentic in the prophet. Why is he telling us this? Because sometimes all else fails and we just do it because we want more money. We want more risk. We want more life. And you know what is halal? Why is it halal? because we know that we're doing it for Allah and Allah will bless bless us with risk. In the end of the day, it is linked to Allah and it is halal. So if all else fails, be selfish for yourself. In this case, it's halal. And you say, Allah, I'm doing this because trust you and trust your sallallahu alaihi wasallam. have iman that if am the better person and fulfill the ties of kinship that you will give me better life and you will raise my financial status and you will let me die peaceful death." This is iman, isn't it? Right? because you're doing it because the prophetam said so. So it's all halal. And therefore, brothers and sisters, it is permissible to use this as an incentive to connect with those who have cut off from you. And we conclude this hadith with stern reminder. Brothers and sisters, our prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam saidith is inki. The one who breaks off the the family ties shall never enter Jenna. We seek Allah's refuge from being amongst them. Islam. Allah about.