Honouring parents

[rraza]

thanks rana, May Allah give us the strength to always be loving and kind no matter what

[Haseenababu]

at the end of the day parents are the ones who have in one way or another helped you at some point in life..even if its fr one moment..i think it wud be good if we hold onto that one moment and try to be the best children we can be.

Very true, was thinking about typing those words. That's what I meant actually from my whole story. Thank u sis.

[Rana]

Wasalaam afridi220. Thanks for your post.

It is pretty clear in 31:15 which your posted. Guess I"m just worn out sometimes. May Allah grant me strength.

[Rana]

thanks rana, May Allah give us the strength to always be loving and kind no matter what

Ameen. 

(Ps I have no idea if saying ameen is the right thing to do anymore. So much to read, reseach, consider...  )

[rraza]

lol..i know exactly how that feels...sometimes i wish i cud be as certain abt my faith as a iwas when i was 11 and ignorant. feel like theres a long way to go..too long sometimes..and with too many possibilities and chances of going wrong

[morninglight]

Rana, I have wondered also about that part of the Quran's teaching.

I was born to a couple way, way up there near the very limits in the scale of personality disorders.  They are absolutely evil beings.  Thanks to God, I survived their cruelty, and I was not with them for long.  My life has been much better with them out of it.

What does the Quran mean by reference to "parents" where it tells us of duty to parents?  Where it gives direction to parents, those directions pertain to parenting.  I cannot believe the duties or obligations (kindness and support) are meant to run only one way when they never ran the other way. 

[huruf]

One has to make de part of things. In another aya of the Qur'an there is an explanation of why one has tob e good to his or her parents. It says te mother carried you 9 months and then took care of you and says something else about the father. On the other hand, the aya quoted at the beginning of the thread says to be good to the parents. I do not see that it says obey them. It is obvious that while we are children and cannot fence for ourselves we should obey, but when we are forty obey the parents cannot be other thing than a joke. Parents get older, so we should be good to them. Muslims must be good to everybody, then obviously also to parents, but parent are not anybody, we owe them something, they have served God, willingly or unwillingly so that we exist. We must be particularly good to them.

But when the father has never cared for us, there is no reason. The mother since even if it was only that, carried us 9 months. Gratefulness demands form us that we do nto forget that, but on the other hand if after that she has been utterly bad to us, first we should defend ourselves, and after we are properly protected we may turn to her and be good to her.

That is what we have been told, be good to them, particularly good. And the same thing applies as to everybody else. We should be good to everybody, but the demand does nto mean that we should obey anybody or put up with anything from anybody. For God's sake we are obliged to every liing being, but that does not mean under any conditions and no matter what they do. The same shoudl apply to parents, only that we are specially indebted to them, sicne God used them for our existence.

Then of course, when they are very loving, we are more than indebted, we love them, love them very much and care for them no because of any obligation, but because we love them.

Teh thing, I think, is that we should not be grudging with them, but ggood. Parenting is very difficult, extremely difficult and people are not genius neither for that nor for anything else, we therefore shoudl be patient with their errors, and not hold them against them when they are not done on purpose. They are human. We should be good to them. We are not perfect either.

Salaam

[Aryan Warrior]

I agree with Huruf above here in that it is not simply telling us to obey our parents but is rather telling us to be good and kind to them. The second part is that if they try to get you to associate partners is what you should never obey.

One other thing I wanna point out is how the Quran uses the word "obey". Obey as the Quran states usually involves "belief" as evident here in 29:8 with how obeying their command to associate partners means you believe them in that there are others who have the right to have a divine association.

or

"And if you obey the majority of those on Earth they will lead you away from God's path; that is because they follow conjecture, and that is because they only guess." (6:116)

Here also shows that it is belief based as leading one astray based on guesswork is likely pointing to someone who follows a false belief.

and of course:

"And do not eat from that which God's name has not been mentioned, for it is vile. And the devils they inspire their supporters to argue with you; and if you obey them, then you have set up partners."(6:121)

Here it states if one regularly eats it, they are simply doing a sin as it calls it "fisq" (vile) and then states if we "obey" them and eat it then we have associated partners, which would likely point to them believing them as if they were lawmakers alongside God that it is okay to eat it as in it isn't haram based on what they said.

Thus obey in the end seems to more or less always involve belief and thus parents are never said to be "obeyed" here and only said to be respected

Course I may be wrong on the "obey" part and if I am then may God forgive me. As for the parents part I am confident in stating that it never stated to obey them.