Am I Obligated to Support Relatives Financially and Remind Them to Pray?

Answered by Shaykh Yusuf Weltch

Question

Am I, as a 17-year-old female without income and limited savings (~$640), obligated to financially support family members like younger cousins or a grandmother? Does nafaqa apply to me if they already have other supporters like parents or children? What aspects of nafaqah are obligatory knowledge?

Am I required to remind all family members to pray, even those in another country whose prayer times I don’t know? Or is this obligation limited to immediate family or those nearby? Does it also include friends?

Answer

In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful and Compassionate.

Financial Support

You are not financially responsible for supporting your family members with few exceptions. If you were the only child or grandchild and you had the financial means of assisting your parent or grandparent, then you would be obliged to do so. [Ibn ‘Abidin, Radd al-Muhtar; al-Mawsu‘a al-Fiqhiyya al-Kuwaitiyya]

If you were not the only child, the obligation would first fall on the shoulders of a brother or uncle (i.e., the son of that grandparent). [Ibid.]

You are not directly obliged to financially support any distant relatives such as cousins. That is unless you were wealthy and no one beside you could help them have the bare necessities of life and they were unable to earn for themselves. If any of these conditions are not met, such that you do not have extra money, they can work, they have their bare necessities, and you are not responsible.

Command the Good and Forbidding the Evil

You are not required to remind “all” your family members to pray as you should assume that they are praying unless you have proof of the opposite.

If there are family members whom you live with and you know they are not praying, then consider the following:

• If you are reasonably sure that your advice would cause them to pray and that there would not be any negative outcomes to giving such advice, such as their increased rebellion against you or their harming of you, then you are obliged to encourage them to pray. [Haddad, al-Da’wa al-Tamma]
• If you are uncertain that your advice would cause them to pray but you are reasonably sure no negative outcomes would come about, then you are recommended to advise them [Ibid.]
• If advising them would lead to negative outcomes, you must not advise them. [Ibid.]

Advice

If you do end up advising your family, you must do so in a manner that is most conducive to positive change. Most of the time, things like not praying are symptoms of something deeper they are struggling with. The most wise way to call people to ultimate good is to find those root causes and help them through those things firstly with good character, secondly with your example, and thirdly with wise counsel.

Hope this helps
Allah knows best
[Shaykh] Yusuf Weltch
Checked and Approved by Shaykh Abdul-Rahim Reasat

Shaykh Yusuf Weltch is a teacher of Arabic, Islamic law, and spirituality. After accepting Islam in 2008, he went on to study at Darul Uloom Seminary in New York and completed his studies at Darul Mustafa in Tarim, Yemen.

There, he completed the memorization of the Quran and his study of Islamic Sciences. Throughout his years of study, he was blessed to learn from many great scholars: Habib Umar bin Hafiz, Habib Kazhim al-Saqqaf, Shaykh ‘Umar bin Husayn al-Khatib, and others.

Upon returning, he joined the SeekersGuidance faculty in the summer of 2019.