Problems with parents in-law

20-9-2004 | IslamWeb

Question:

I want to ask about the relation between parents and their son with his wife. And if the son or his wife do some mistakes for his parents, and they insist that they did not do anything wrong, what we can do to solve all problems between them.

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Answer:

All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad is His slave and Messenger. We ask Allaah to exalt his mention as well as that of his family and all his companions.

 

Parents have a great right on their son as Allaah paralleled it with His Right as He says (interpretation of the meaning): {And your Lord has decreed that you worship none but Him. And that you be dutiful to your parents}[17:23]. So he has to be kind and dutiful to them. When the son marries, his wife has rights on him too. So he has to be wise in fulfilling the rights of everyone as much as he can. However, the wife has to help her husband in being kind and dutiful to his parents. Doing so, is a sign of affection and good marital relations with her husband. This is in general. In addition to this, if some problems occur, the son has to be wise in solving them. He has to sit with his parents and speak to them frankly and truthfully in order to find the causes of the problem. He has to do the same thing with his wife. It might be that it is just a misunderstanding or that one of them was neglectful, so he has to deal with each of them according to what suits him/her.

Finally, we draw your attention to two matters:

Firstly, if there is a contradiction between being dutiful to the parents and being kind to the wife to an extent that it is impossible to combine both, then being dutiful to the parents comes first.

Secondly, in principle a Muslim is innocent, so it is not permissible to discredit or disgrace him/her without evidence.

Allaah knows best.