A man whom Allah had blessed with wealth and provision worked abroad and left his family in the city: his wife, two sons and a daughter, all of them in the top faculties.
This man had a brother who lived in their old village with his wife, in modest circumstances.
The father was keen on keeping the ties of kinship, so he obliged his children and his wife to go constantly to the village to visit the grandfather and grandmother, intending in good faith to strengthen the bonds. Yet the father, together with his brother, overlooked the limits Allah had set in this keeping of ties. He thought that mixing within the family was harmless; indeed, he encouraged it and went far in it.
As for the eldest son, he was sincere in advising his father, warning him of the consequences of forbidden mixing, and reminding him of the prohibition of seclusion and of familiarity between men and women outside the bounds of the Shari’ah, saying:
“Father, this is not how ties of kinship are kept. This is forbidden mixing, and it will have grievous consequences.”
But the father refused. He had a purpose in his heart: to marry his sons to his brother’s daughters, and to join wealth and kinship into a single whole.
The days went by, the children grew up, and the visits, the overnight stays and the late evenings grew ever more frequent, until hearts became familiar, souls grew lax, and modesty was stripped from where it belonged.
But the winds blew contrary to what the ships desired, and the children went against their father’s wish:
- The eldest son married a girl from outside the family.
- Then his brother followed him and married another, likewise.
- The daughter remained, and the attempts began and the pressure mounted, but in the end she married a young man with no connection to the family.
At that point the scales were overturned. The uncle and his wife were incensed and their anger grew fierce, for they saw that the money would go outside the bounds of the family! As though lineage and money had more right than obedience to Allah.
The dispute grew, and the father began to be harsh with his children without cause, while the uncle and his family came to exercise a heavy control over the father’s life, his money and his decisions.
Then once, at an ‘aqiqah celebration at the uncle’s house, something intolerable happened:
The husband of the uncle’s daughter went into the flat reserved for the eldest son and shut the door on himself with his mother and his children, while the son’s wife and her children were looking for a place to sleep.
When the son learned of this, his protective jealousy was roused, and he left in anger, denouncing this transgression to his father and his uncle. But his right was disregarded, and he was left wronged, with no one to support him.
Moreover, the father afterwards demanded that he visit the uncle, and even accused him of falling short in his duty to the family, when it was the father who had not done him justice and had not upheld the law of Allah, and when the son was the one who had always prayed and read the Qur’an.
And so matters worsened, relations were severed, the son’s bond with his father weakened, and the bridges began to collapse.
True is the one who said: A person is punished with the opposite of his intent.
The father wanted to bring the family together through mixing, and he became the cause of its division.
He wanted to preserve the wealth and the lineage, yet the wealth went out and the lineage was lost, what remained of dignity was lost, and the values in his house collapsed.
So, O servants of Allah, uphold the limits of Allah and your homes will be preserved for you, and do not put customs before the Shari’ah. For Allah does not amend the work of corrupters, and whoever disobeys Allah has wronged himself, and he will not find for himself besides Him any protector or helper.