So what if he has a higher status? should we love abusive parents now and lower our heads if they are spoiling our religion and life?
No! You don't have to love anybody not even your own child. This is not obligatory to be honest. So no..you don't have to love your father or shockingly your mother, but it still does not remove their status over you regardless of how they mistreat you. You still have to show kindness to them, not say OOFF to them and be respectful to them. Don't for them mate. Do it for Allah's pleasure. You honestly believe, Allah (Subhananu Wa Talaa) is going to test you on fluffy clouds and pillows!!! Think man. Think. He is going to test you through calamities. He placed a command in the Qura'an about how to treat your parents, then he put hardship on it to see if you are going to obey his command with the difficulty he put in there. Naturally is going to be easy to obey one's parent(s) if such parent(s) is perfect and never make mistake and is the parent of the year. Ponder on those words.
Did he ever make him feel like a dad? Did he ever make him feel like a son though?
It is a two ways street. Father child relationship is different than mother child relationship. Mother have had nine easy month given to her through biological interaction and hormone for both child and parent to form relationship. With father he have nine month of nothing. He had nine month of going out there to work to feed you. He had nine month going out there to harm his body to lift heavy objects to make sure the mother who is keeping you safe inside her body is fed and taking care of so you are taking care of. I think the status here is more on him than on the son..and I think the son should put more effort on this way to form a bond verses the father if he doesn't know how..or he feels resentments or he feels he is just a sperm donor or human wallet or.....
But did you notice something? How easy for you to go ahead and attack the father had it been a mother your tone of voice would have been different. You would say, "She is your mother. She birthed you. She have taken care of you. The paradise is underneath the feet of the mother. The list of goes on and on and on" But since that is a dad.."How dare he! He have no right! Etc" You see? Even when it comes to this...the treatment of one parent is different than another. So we understand, and I agree, there is no equality between father and mother on this regard, then please don't expect the father to behave like a mother and it should be instinctive just because he is a father..like a loyal dog..should treat his son with kindness and make his son feel like a son and love his son. I am sorry..but you are living in fantasy. You don't know what this man went through, how he feels and what negative thoughts have entered his mind all the time (or even whispers by the shaitaan) before he birthed a son that festered into his heart.
Now..if I was the original OP...I would work hard for a full year...make it a project...a challenging project...to climb that hurdle of mountain to try to get into my father's heart..for ALLAH'S pleasure...and after a year if I still failed...I would rub the dust out of my shirt and smile knowing I have build this huge amount of reward in the afterlife. I would thank Allah for everything. I would not complain about my father. I would thank my father for have given me stronger personality, have made me tougher, able to handle crap, able to handle patience and improved myself from previous year even though my own father will never acknowledge...I am acknowledging it
We dont know the situation in details so we cant take sides...but i kinda believe him because i know the brother he stayed with me all nights long when nobody here cared,hes a nice brother...and also my father is the same in many of these...never made me feel like a son,never was my mentor,never was there for me etc....i guess this is how it is...good fathers with bad children and bad fathers with good children,with a few exceptions...
We don't know sides but it doesn't change this...he is your father. Show kindness and respect and don't see off to him. Simple as that. Maybe this is a learning lesson for all the children out there who do have a good father not to take him for granted and to show him special kindness that melt his heart and to thank Allah for giving them good kind parents (mother and father).
https://islamqa.info/en/answers/176847/hating-an-unjust-father
Question
I am a young woman, thirty years old. My problem is that I hate my father vehemently and I cannot even listen to any news of him. My father transgressed against my rights and the rights of my mother and siblings. He left me when I was small, eight years old, and travelled to another city where he married another woman and forgot that he had two small daughters, me and my sister. We needed him to be with us but he did not care about that. All he cared about was himself. He left me and my mother and my sister with my married brothers, and their wives were mean to us. They created trouble and my brothers believed them. The matter went so far that my mother, my sister and I were kicked out and went to live for a while in my married sister’s house, and we went through a lot of problems. I blame my father because he did not think of us and he did not provide us with a peaceful life, and he left us to our fate, to suffer harshness and injustice. After that, we moved with my mother to the same city where my father lives. He has had children from his other wife and he did not treat us fairly. We lived in difficult circumstances and he did not spend on us; my poor mother used to sell our used clothes in order to provide food for us. We have grown up and I still do not see any care from my father. I hate him very much and he does not even deserve to be called a father. He has not provided a decent life for me and my sister, and he does not care about our future with regard to us getting married and settling down. I have become hardhearted because of the difficult circumstances I have gone through. Now he has sold a house of his and given all the money to his other wife and her children, and he did not remember us at all. I hate him very much; am I to be blamed for hating him? What is the Islamic ruling on that?
Answer
Praise be to Allaah.
Firstly:
We ask Allah, may He be exalted, to recompense you for your calamity, and to relieve you of your pain, and decree reward for you. And we ask Him, may He be exalted, to guide your father, for he has acted very badly indeed by deliberately neglecting his family whom Allah, may He be exalted, commanded him to look after and take care of, especially since those whom he neglected of his family are those who are weak. Your father has also been unjust toward your mother by not giving her her rights of maintenance and not being fair between her and his other wife. And he has been unjust in terms of giving, as he has given to his children from his other wife but not to his children from his first wife. All these things that your father has done are clearly sins and neglect of the obligations that Allah, may He be exalted, has enjoined upon him, so he deserves the warning unless he repents to his Lord, gives up this wrongdoing, establishes equal treatment of his two families, and sets straight what he has done wrong. If he does that, he will find that his Lord will accept his repentance and show mercy.
Secondly:
Despite all the things that your father has done, his right to kind treatment and obedience in that which is right and proper is still guaranteed, according to the shar‘i (religious) texts. If Allah, may He be exalted, has mentioned the rights of the mushrik (pagan) father – and even the one who calls his children to associate others with their Lord, may He be glorified and exalted – to kind treatment and good companionship, then the one who is less than him in terms of evildoing is more entitled to that kind treatment and good companionship. Allah, may He be exalted, says (interpretation of the meaning):
“But if they (both) strive with you to make you join in worship with Me others that of which you have no knowledge, then obey them not, but behave with them in the world kindly, and follow the path of him who turns to Me in repentance and in obedience. Then to Me will be your return, and I shall tell you what you used to do”
[31:15].
Although the father deserves to be warned (of divine punishment) for his sin and neglect of shar‘i duties, disobedient children and those who do not treat their parents kindly are also warned about their actions; it is not permissible to repay mistreatment with mistreatment or wrongdoing with wrongdoing.
Thirdly:
Although children are not to be blamed for feelings of resentment in the heart towards the father who commits sin or is a disbeliever, that does not contradict the duty to treat him kindly and obey him in that which is right and proper. But you have to hold your tongue and refrain from speaking badly to him, and also refrain from mistreating him in practical terms.
As the issue was caused by your father’s actions and you have gone through so much pain and hardship, we advise you to seek reward with Allah for what you have gone through. And we advise you to offer du‘aa (supplication) for your father, praying that he be guided and enabled to repent and set things right, because he is in the greatest need of the mercy and forgiveness of Allah, may He be exalted.
See also the answer to question no. 148924.
And Allah knows best.
