12. SUPPORT OF ONE’S PARENTS AND CHILDREN
SUPPORT OF ONE’S PARENTS AND CHILDREN
It is obligatory for one to support the persons listed below, whether one is male or female, when one has money in excess of one’s own living expenses and (if male,) those of one’s wife (meaning enough for a day and night, oneself taking priority over others, followed by one’s wife, who takes precedence over other family members):
1. one’s father, father’s father, and on up;
2. one’s mother, grandmothers (from either parent’s side) and on up (it making no difference what their religion is (since the religion of the family members is of no consequence in any of the rulings of this section));
3. and one’s children, male and female, their children, and on down.
(Money in excess of one’s own living expenses and those of one’s wife means one is obliged to sell (if necessary, to fulfill the obligation to support the above-mentioned persons) whatever must be sold when one has to pay debts, including real estate and other property.)
But supporting the above-mentioned persons is only obligatory when:
a) there is poverty (a restriction applicable to both support of one’s ancestors and one’s descendants, meaning that it is necessary in order for it to be obligatory to support one’s ancestor that the ancestor be poor, since if he has enough money, one need not support him);
b) and incapacity (to earn a living) due to chronic illness, being a child, or to mental illness. (This condition is only applicable to support of one’s offspring, not of one’s ancestors. If an (impoverished) ancestor (such as one’s father) were able to earn a living from a job suitable to him, it would nevertheless be obligatory for one to support him, and he would not be called upon to gain a livelihood, because of the extreme respect due to him, as opposed to one’s descendant, whom one need not support if the descendant is able to earn his own living, but who rather is called upon to do so himself.
The upshot is that the support of whoever has enough money for their own support is not obligatory upon another family member, no matter whether the former is mentally ill or sane, a child or adult, chronically ill or well; because he does not deserve charity in such a condition while a descendant able to earn an adequate living does not deserve support from his ancestors.)
A child is obliged to support his father’s wife (if the father cannot).
When a person has both ancestors and children (deserving support) but does not have enough for all, then (0: after himself and then his wife) he gives precedence (in order) to:
1. his mother;
2. his father;
3. his young son (or daughter);
4. and then to his adult children (if they are unable to earn).
The amount of such support must be enough to suffice, though (if this much is not paid) it does not become a debt owed by the person who should have given it. (It is no longer obligatory after its time has passed (but if the deserving person borrows money to support himself during this period, the person who should have supported him is obliged to pay the debt), even though the person who was obliged to give it has committed a sin by thus allowing the time to pass.)
When a father who is poor needs to marry, then a son who is financially able must provide him with the means to keep chaste by finding him a wife (i.e. by giving her the marriage payment (mahr). It is not permissible to marry him to a deformed or aged woman).
Whoever owns an animal is obliged to pay for its maintenance.
(The restoration and maintenance of property without a living spirit, such as a canal or house, is not obligatory for its owner. Mutawalli explains this by the fact that such maintenance is an augmentation to the property and as such is not mandatory, as opposed to livestock, whose owner must feed them, since to neglect to do so would entail harm for them. Other scholars explain the difference in terms of the sacredness of animate life, which the author of al-Istiqsa’ (‘Uthman ibn ‘Isa Marani) says is the reason that it is wrong for someone to prevent living things from drinking surplus water, while it is not a sin to neglect watering crops.)
(Source: The reliance of the traveller, revised edition, Edited and Translated by Nuh Ha Mim Keller)
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