Morality within the Family

Relationships in the family should be based on mutual love and respect in order for the family to be a home where people find peace. In a family, everyone has certain duties and responsibilities towards others: spouses towards each other, parents towards their children, and children towards their parents. It is necessary to pay attention to these duties and responsibilities in order to ensure the family peace envisaged by Islam.

It is a reflection of morality that spouses have good intentions and behave well while fulfilling their duties towards each other and their children in the family. The Prophet Muhammad (saw), who is the best example for us in establishing a healthy family home, as in all matters, emphasized that establishing good relations in the family is a necessity of being a good person with the following hadith: "The best of you is the one who is best to his wife. I am the best of you to my wives." (Ibn Majah, Nikah, 50) While encouraging all kinds of behaviors towards getting along with each other in the family, He strictly forbade any attitude that would harm this beautiful union, especially violent behaviors. (Bukhari, Nikah, 94; Ibn Hanbal, II, 245) 

Defining men and women as “two halves of a whole that are similar and complement each other”(Abu Dawud, Taharah, 94) the Prophet Muhammad (saw) addressed the believers in His Farewell Sermon: “People!... Fear Allah concerning women! Verily you have taken them on the security of Allah, and intercourse with them has been made lawful unto you by words of Allah… There are rights for you upon your women, and rights for your women upon you…” (Muslim, Hajj, 147; Tirmidhi, Tafsir, 9) Spouses in the family should act with this awareness and build their relationships on respect, love and understanding, not on the race for supremacy. They should raise their children, entrusted to them by Almighty Allah (swt), in the best way possible. For Allah says in the Qur'an “O you who have believed, protect yourselves and your families from a Fire whose fuel is people and stones(Tahrim, 66/6). Giving the child a good name and educating him/her in the best way is one of the responsibilities towards the child. As a matter of fact, the Prophet Muhammad (saw) said: “There is no gift that a father gives his son more virtuous than good manners.” (Tirmidhi, Birr, 33) It is also among the duties of parents towards their children to show the necessary love and attention to children, to approach them with compassion, to stay away from all kinds of violence and bad behavior, not to discriminate among children and to set a good example for them. 

Parents who raise their children with great devotion have a very special place in our religion. The Prophet Muhammad (saw) said about them “The Lord's pleasure is in the parent's pleasure. And the Lord's anger is in the parent's anger.” (Tirmidhi, Birr, 3) . In this direction, children should be attached to their parents with respect and love, and should be in an attitude that will gain their satisfaction. In the Qur'an, our Lord teaches us how to treat our parents as follows: “And your Lord has decreed that you not worship except Him, and to parents, good treatment.  Whether one or both of them reach old age [while] with you, say not to them [so much as], "uff," and do not repel them but speak to them a noble word. And lower to them the wing of humility out of mercy and say, 'My Lord, have mercy upon them as they brought me up [when I was] small.'" (Isra, 17/23-24) In addition to parents, showing respect to and behaving well to elders such as grandparents in the family are among the moral values recommended by our religion. Treating them indifferently, excluding them and sending them away from the warm family environment and sending them to nursing homes is not in accordance with Islamic moral values. The family envisaged by Islam is a warm home where individuals connect to each other with love and respect, and a school where basic moral values such as compassion, self-sacrifice, goodness and patience are taught by living. The examples of disrespect towards parents and violence against family members in some families unfortunately cause the destruction of family peace. Such negative examples are far from the family example that Islam aims to achieve.