As salamu alaikum dear imam,
I have a question: My father and uncles are known to treat my grandmother as a queen and give her anything she desires even if she is in the wrong and causes fights and disagreements in the homes of her sons, because she does not let their wives have their desired time and attention with their husbands. Besides that she does other things that disagree with the beliefs of islam. Still they devote their time and attention to their mother and never tell her she is wrong, because they are scared of her wrath. For they strongly believe that heaven is under the feet of their mother (as stated in the qur’an) even if she is wrong and does many haram things. Now besides this problem my cousin has been treating his mother and sister very disrespectfully. worse than before. He talks them down, says that women only exist to clean and cook, calls his sister names (does anything to annoy her), purposely is lazy to make his mother and sister clean after him. He told my aunt that my uncle owns everything she has and could basically kick her out and that she doesn’t care about her own mother and that she should look for her. Her mother left her and her sister when they were very young. She and her sister found each other for the first time years later as adults. Above all that he is also starting to care more and more for my grandmother than his own mother. My uncle never gets mad at him or even tells him to do the same for his mother as he does for his. My cousin does not have any friends or does bad things outside of the house. He only plays on the playstation and helps his father. My uncle is afraid to be stern, because he thinks it will make him rebel and secretly start doing haram things outside of the house. He leaves all of the parental duty to my aunt and only cares about providing with money. My aunt has been through a lot of emotional baggage and i as his niece want to help my aunt and talk some sense into my cousin and uncle by giving them examples from our religion and rules that indicate what my cousin is doing is haram and that my father and his brother are being bad examples for him. Besides that i would like some more insight about my grandmothers situation to help my own mother, because my father does the exact same as my uncle and forgives her for everything she does even if she is very very wrong in her actions. I mean they pay for her zakat and good deeds, because she is too greedy to do it herself. They pay for everything she has. she steals food from our houses even though they overstock her fridges and cabinets every week with fresh food. She goes about everyone’s houses and spreads lies. So many things that i cannot name them. Whenever you want to adres the issue with them they just cut you off and say that you are too young to have know what you are talking about. But that is not true. We are always observing and never allowed to speak. I am 19 not 9. I am a university student and have a very open mind. I like listening to others before i speak. I don’t like yelling. Still they won’t listen and i have to sit by as everyone yells at each other and no one understands each other.
I am very sorry for posting such a humongous story, but i am tired of not being listened to and feel like they will only ever listen to an imam.
I thank you in advance for your wise words and time.
yours faithfully,
Fatima Qader
