A married daughter who reduced her financial help to her mother

A question about a married daughter who reduced what she gave her widowed mother, after which the mother cut her off, in which Jordan's General Iftaa Department answered that reducing support for a valid reason is not undutifulness, that a needy mother's maintenance falls on all her children, and that the mother may not sever ties with her daughter. ¹

The questioner said his mother-in-law, a widow on a pension, relied on her daughter's salary before the daughter married; after marrying, the daughter only kept repaying a loan for her mother at 100 dinars a month, so the mother stopped her other children from visiting their sister and refused reconciliation unless the full help resumed, although the wife has a loan of her own; he asked whether his wife counts as undutiful. ¹

The Department answered that Islam calls for kindness to parents and helping them with effort and money, and courtesy towards them, especially in old age. ¹ It said a needy mother's maintenance is shared among her sons and daughters to the extent of her needs, citing article 197 of Jordan's Personal Status Law, which obliges a child of means to maintain poor parents, so some children may not bear it alone if all are able. ¹ If the mother's needs are met, she may not load her daughter with more than she needs, and in any case she may not cut off her daughter or order her children to do so, since that is ordering the severing of kinship ties; it quoted Ibn Hajar al-Haytami's al-Zawajir on what makes cutting kin forbidden. ¹ It concluded that the daughter should stay kind and obedient to her mother, and that reducing support in the way described is not undutifulness if she is excused by an income that does not suffice. ¹

Jordan's General Iftaa Department published this fatwa on aliftaa.jo as no. 3835, dated 28 November 2023. ¹ The museum records this text as a historical document attributed to the body or scholar that issued it; it issues no ruling of its own.