Family, Neighbours and Community: The Rights of Others

New to the Qur'an? Start with The Qur'an: What It Is, How It Came Down, and How It Was Kept, then read Muhammad ﷺ: A Life. All articles: Deen: Start Here.

Deen · The rights of others

Most of a Muslim's religious life is not spent on a prayer mat. It is spent with a mother who repeats herself, a spouse at the end of a long day, a child who wants the same as the sibling got, a cousin who stopped calling, the people over the back fence, a visitor who stays too long. The Qur'an and the Sunna have a great deal to say about all of them, and they say it in the language of rights (ḥuqūq): what each of these people is owed, not as a favour, but as a matter of faith.

A map of rights

The verse that organises this whole subject sits in the fourth sūra. It opens with God and then turns, without a break, to people:

"Worship Allah ˹alone˺ and associate none with Him. And be kind to parents, relatives, orphans, the poor, near and distant neighbours, close friends, ˹needy˺ travellers, and those ˹bondspeople˺ in your possession. …"

Qur'an 4:36 (Khattab; the verse closes with God's dislike of the arrogant and boastful)¹

وَبِالْوَالِدَيْنِ إِحْسَانًا

"and to parents, iḥsān"

The word the verse uses for "be kind" is iḥsān, the same word the Hadith of Jibrīl uses for worshipping God "as if you are seeing Him".¹⁰ It means doing a thing well, beyond what is strictly required. The same pairing, God first and then parents, comes again in 17:23, and the list of recipients in 2:215 (parents, relatives, orphans, the poor, travellers) follows the same order.¹¹

The hadith literature gives the list a second, more everyday shape. Abū Hurayra reports the Prophet ﷺ saying that "the rights of a Muslim on the Muslims are five": returning the greeting of peace, visiting the sick, following the funeral, accepting an invitation, and answering the one who sneezes and praises God.¹² Muslim's version has six, adding sincere advice when it is asked for.¹³ These are small things, and that is the point. The rights are mostly met in ordinary acts.

Later writers turned this material into books. Al-Bukhārī gathered his al-Adab al-mufrad around it, with chapters on parents, kin, neighbours, orphans and guests; its reports vary in strength and al-Albānī split it into sound and weak halves.¹⁴ Al-Ghazālī gave a whole book of the Iḥyāʾ to friendship and brotherhood, ending with the duties owed to fellow Muslims, relatives and neighbours.¹⁵ In the Shia tradition the best known treatment is the Risālat al-ḥuqūq, the Treatise on Rights attributed to ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn, the Prophet's great-grandson, which lists fifty-one rights from God's down to those of people living under Muslim protection.¹⁶ These are later arrangements, valuable as they are. The obligations themselves come from the verses and the sound reports, and that is where each section below starts.

Parents

No human relationship gets stronger language in the Qur'an. The decree in 17:23 sets worship of God and honour of parents side by side, and then becomes very specific about old age:

"For your Lord has decreed that you worship none but Him. And honour your parents. If one or both of them reach old age in your care, never say to them ˹even˺ 'ugh,' nor yell at them. Rather, address them respectfully. And be humble with them out of mercy, and pray, 'My Lord! Be merciful to them as they raised me when I was young.'"

Qur'an 17:23–24 (Khattab)²

Anyone who has looked after an elderly parent knows why the verse picks "ugh". It is the smallest sound of impatience, the sigh before a reply, and it is ruled out. The prayer at the end is a reminder that the roles have swapped: the child is now doing for the parent what the parent once did for the child.

Luqmān's chapter adds the mother. "Their mothers bore them through hardship upon hardship," it says, and then: "So be grateful to Me and your parents. To Me is the final return."⁴ The hadith makes the same point with numbers. A man asked who most deserved his good companionship, and the Prophet ﷺ said "your mother" three times before saying "your father".¹⁷

The weight on the other side is just as clear. Asked to name the greatest of the major sins, he listed associating partners with God and then being undutiful to parents.³ And in Muslim's collection he says, three times, that a person is humbled into the dust if his parents reach old age in his lifetime and he still does not enter Paradise through them: their old age is treated as an open door.¹⁸

Where obedience ends

The same verse in Luqmān draws the limit. "But if they pressure you to associate with Me what you have no knowledge of, do not obey them. Still keep their company in this world courteously."⁴ Two rules sit inside that sentence. Obedience has an outer edge: a parent cannot command a sin. Courtesy does not: even a parent who is pushing their child away from God is owed decent company. Asmāʾ bint Abī Bakr's mother, who was not a Muslim, came to visit her in Medina hoping for her help. Asmāʾ asked the Prophet ﷺ whether she should keep good relations with her, and he said yes.¹⁹

For converts in Australia whose parents are Christian, Hindu or of no faith, this is the text that governs. Nothing in the Qur'an or the sound hadith tells a convert to keep their distance from their parents, and the Asmāʾ report points firmly the other way.

In-laws

A practical question comes up constantly in extended families: does a wife owe her husband's parents the same service he does? The fatwa bodies I checked answer no. Egypt's Dar al-Iftāʾ says a woman is not religiously required to serve her husband's parents, that the duty to care for them is his, and that whatever help she gives is a kindness that deserves gratitude.²⁰ A Ḥanafī mufti in Leicester puts it the same way: there are "no obligatory religious duties on either of the spouses" towards in-laws, though kindness to them is rewarded.²¹ Both expect respect and warmth. Neither treats household service as a legal duty. Many families live otherwise by custom, and custom can be generous, but it should not be mistaken for a ruling.

Husbands and wives

The Qur'an describes marriage first as a sign of God: "And one of His signs is that He created for you spouses from among yourselves so that you may find comfort in them. And He has placed between you compassion and mercy."⁵ The words are mawadda and raḥma, love and mercy, and they come before any list of duties.

The duties are there too. "Women have rights similar to those of men equitably, although men have a degree ˹of responsibility˺ above them," says 2:228.²² What that "degree" means, and how 4:34 should be read, are among the most argued questions in modern Islamic thought, and the site's post on women in Islam sets out the readings and who holds them. I will not re-argue them here. What is not in dispute is the floor. Verse 4:19 forbids men to "inherit women against their will" and then says: "Treat them fairly. If you happen to dislike them, you may hate something which Allah turns into a great blessing."²³

The sound hadith fill in the floor in the most concrete terms. Asked what a wife is owed, the Prophet ﷺ said: feed her when you eat, clothe her when you clothe yourself, do not strike her face, and do not revile her.²⁴ In Muslim's collection he says a believing man should not hate a believing woman, because if he dislikes one trait in her he will be pleased with another, which is close to the sense of 4:19.²⁵ And there is the line most Muslims know by heart, which al-Tirmidhī records twice in slightly different forms: "The best of you is the best to his wives, and I am the best of you to my wives."²⁶²⁷ In Abū Hurayra's version it is tied to character: the most complete believers in faith are those with the best character.

Responsibility runs both ways. "Everyone of you is a guardian and responsible for his charges," the Prophet ﷺ said, naming the man as guardian of his household and the woman as guardian of her husband's house and children.²⁸ The classical jurists turned this into a structure of maintenance (nafaqa) owed by the husband and specific duties owed by the wife, and the women-in-Islam post goes through how that structure has been read and criticised. For daily life, the hadith above are probably the more useful test.

Children

The Qur'an's instruction to parents is short and serious: "O believers! Protect yourselves and your families from a Fire whose fuel is people and stones …"²⁹ Read with the hadith below, it makes a family's faith partly the parents' responsibility.

The most specific hadith on that teaching concerns prayer. "Command your children to pray when they become seven years old," the Prophet ﷺ said, with discipline at ten and separate beds; al-Albānī graded it ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ.³⁰ The ages are a timetable for habit, and the emphasis in the report falls on the seven years of gentle instruction before anything firmer.

Fairness between children has one of the clearest cases in the whole Sunna. Al-Nuʿmān ibn Bashīr's father gave him a gift, and his mother wanted the Prophet ﷺ to witness it. He asked whether every child had been given the same. When the father said no, he answered: "Be afraid of Allah, and be just to your children." The gift was taken back.⁶³¹ The heading placed over the report in Muslim's collection calls favouritism in gifts disliked; others read the command as stricter. Either way, it is no permission to play favourites.

Then there is tenderness, which the texts treat as part of faith rather than a matter of temperament. When al-Aqraʿ ibn Ḥābis saw the Prophet ﷺ kiss his grandson al-Ḥasan and said he had ten children and had never kissed one of them, the reply was: "Whoever is not merciful to others will not be treated mercifully."³² ʿĀʾisha tells of a poor woman who came with two daughters; she had only one date to give, and the mother split it between the girls and ate nothing. The Prophet ﷺ said that whoever is tried with daughters and treats them well, they will be a shield for him from the Fire.³³ In a culture that preferred sons, that was a pointed thing to say, and it remains one.

Kinship ties

The fourth sūra opens with humanity's single origin and then asks people to be mindful of God "in Whose Name you appeal to one another, and ˹honour˺ family ties."³⁴ The Arabic for family ties is al-arḥām, wombs, and the duty of keeping them is called ṣilat al-raḥim, joining the womb. In 47:22–23 the Qur'an puts cutting them beside spreading corruption in the land and says those who do both are the ones God has condemned.³⁵

Two hadith in al-Bukhārī set the stakes in each direction. "The person who severs the bond of kinship will not enter Paradise."³⁶ And whoever wants his provision widened and his life lengthened "should keep good relations with his kith and kin."³⁷

The hardest of them, and the most useful, is about relatives who do not reciprocate. "Al-Wāṣil is not the one who recompenses the good done to him by his relatives," the Prophet ﷺ said; the one who truly keeps ties is the one who rejoins them when they have been cut.⁷ That turns ṣilat al-raḥim from a fair exchange into a one-sided duty. The cousin who never rings back still gets a call on Eid. The Twelver collections carry the same teaching from Imam Jaʿfar al-Ṣādiq, in a report graded ṣaḥīḥ by both al-Majlisī and al-Behbūdī: if you keep the tie while your relative cuts it, God keeps it for you both.³⁸

Keeping ties has degrees, from living together to a greeting and a prayer. Nothing in the texts above requires a person to stay in harm's way, and where a family has abuse in it, how to keep the tie is a question for a scholar and, if needed, for the law.

Neighbours

The neighbour hadith are some of the most quoted in the tradition, and they deserve it. ʿĀʾisha reports the Prophet ﷺ saying that Gabriel kept urging him to treat the neighbour well until he thought the neighbour would be made an heir.⁸ Ibn ʿUmar narrates the same words in Muslim's collection.³⁹ And three times, under oath, "By Allah, he does not believe": the one whose neighbour is not safe from his harm.⁴⁰

The practical advice is small and concrete. Abū Dharr was told to add water to his broth so there would be some for the neighbours.⁴¹ ʿĀʾisha asked which of two neighbours should get a gift first, and was told: "To the one whose door is nearer to you."⁴² The famous pairing in al-Bukhārī comes as a set of three: whoever believes in God and the Last Day should not harm his neighbour, should honour his guest, and should speak good or stay silent.⁴³⁴⁴

Who counts as a neighbour? The texts above do not ask about religion, and the Companions did not read them that way. When ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr had a sheep slaughtered, his first question was whether a portion had gone to "our Jewish neighbour", and he cited the Gabriel hadith as his reason.⁹ As for distance, the often-repeated "forty houses in every direction" is not a saying of the Prophet in the Sunni collections: in al-Adab al-mufrad it is the opinion of al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī.⁴⁵ The Twelver al-Kāfī has the forty houses in a report from the Prophet ﷺ graded majhūl by al-Majlisī, and in a report from Imam al-Bāqir graded ḥasan.⁴⁶ So the figure is old and widely used, but it is a definition offered by later authorities, not something on which the sound Sunni texts insist.

Imam Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn's treatise puts the neighbour's right in a phrase worth remembering: "guard him when he is absent, honour him when he is present," keep his secrets, help him when he is wronged, and forgive his slips.⁴⁷ A report in al-Kāfī graded ṣaḥīḥ adds that good neighbourliness makes the land prosper and lengthens lives.⁴⁸

Orphans and the poor

The Prophet ﷺ was himself an orphan, and the Qur'an reminds him of it before telling him what follows: "So do not oppress the orphan, nor repulse the beggar."⁴⁹ Orphans' property is the subject of some of the Qur'an's sharpest warnings. Guardians are told to "give orphans their wealth ˹when they reach maturity˺" and not to swap their own worthless things for the orphans' good ones,⁵⁰ and "those who unjustly consume orphans' wealth ˹in fact˺ consume nothing but fire into their bellies."⁵¹ Consuming an orphan's wealth is one of the seven destructive sins in al-Bukhārī's list.⁵²

The reward is described just as vividly. "I and the one who looks after an orphan will be like this in Paradise," the Prophet ﷺ said, holding two fingers together.⁵³ And whoever works to support a widow or a poor person is like a fighter in God's cause, or one who prays all night and fasts all day.⁵⁴

Sūrat al-Insān describes the people of Paradise as those who "give food, despite their desire for it, to the poor, the orphan, and the captive," saying "We feed you only for the sake of Allah, seeking neither reward nor thanks from you."⁵⁵ The last phrase matters as much as the food. Help is not a transaction, and it is not given to be thanked. Zakat, the obligatory alms, is the structured form of this duty and has its own post; everything above is the unstructured part, which has no ceiling.

Guests, the sick and the dead

The five (or six) rights of a Muslim over a Muslim are a list of visits: to a sick bed, to a funeral, to a meal one has been invited to.¹²¹³ Each has its own texts.

Guests

Hospitality has a measure. The guest's right is three days, Abū Shurayḥ reports, with special care on the first day and night, and anything beyond that is charity.⁴⁴ The same hadith, in the same breath, tells the host to speak good or keep quiet, which most hosts will recognise as the harder half.

The sick

"Feed the hungry, visit the sick, and set free the captives," the Prophet ﷺ said.⁵⁶ Al-Bukhārī placed that hadith under a chapter heading saying visiting the sick is obligatory; the heading is his own judgement on the hadith, not part of it. A divine saying in Muslim's collection gives the visit a weight nothing else in this list has. On the Day of Resurrection, God says: "O son of Adam, I was sick but you did not visit Me." When the servant asks how he could visit the Lord of the worlds, he is told that had he visited His sick servant, he would have found God there.⁵⁷ The Prophet ﷺ also visited a sick Jewish boy who used to serve him.⁵⁸

The dead

Following the funeral is one of the five rights.¹² So is the respect owed to death itself: when a funeral passed and someone said it was a Jew's, the Prophet ﷺ stood and said, "Is it not a living being (soul)?"⁵⁹ The rites (washing, shrouding, the prayer, burial) and the differences between the schools are set out in the post on death and the afterlife.

What a child can still do for a parent after death is a common question. The sound basis is the hadith in Muslim: a person's deeds end at death except for three, one of which is "a righteous child who prays for him."⁶⁰ The more detailed list that is often quoted (praying for them, carrying out their wishes, keeping the ties that ran through them, honouring their friends) comes from a report in Abū Dāwūd that al-Albānī graded weak.⁶¹ The practices themselves are good and most rest on other evidence, but that particular list should not be quoted as the Prophet's words without saying so.

Brotherhood

Behind these lists sits a larger idea. "The believers are but one brotherhood, so make peace between your brothers."⁶² "None of you will have faith till he wishes for his brother what he likes for himself."⁶³ The believers in their mercy and affection are like one body: when one part aches, the whole body shares the fever.⁶⁴ They are like a building whose parts hold each other up.⁶⁵ A Muslim does not wrong his brother or abandon him, and whoever meets his brother's need, God meets his.⁶⁶⁶⁷ Even helping a man onto his mount, or removing something harmful from the road, is counted as a charity owed by every joint of the body each day.⁶⁸ Much of what is now called community service has a hadith behind it.

Non-Muslim neighbours and fellow citizens

The text that governs here is 60:8: "Allah does not forbid you from dealing kindly and fairly with those who have neither fought nor driven you out of your homes. Surely Allah loves those who are fair."⁶⁹ The verse uses birr, the same word used for kindness to parents. Sufyān ibn ʿUyayna linked it to Asmāʾ's mother, the non-Muslim parent whose visit opened the section on parents.¹⁹

The sound hadith are blunt about harm. Whoever kills a person living under a covenant with the Muslims (a muʿāhad) "shall not smell the smell of Paradise."⁷⁰ In Abū Dāwūd, graded ṣaḥīḥ by al-Albānī, the Prophet ﷺ says he will plead on the Day of Judgment against anyone who wrongs such a person, diminishes his rights, burdens him beyond his ability or takes anything from him without consent.⁷¹ Add the neighbour hadith, the Jewish neighbour's share of the sheep, the visit to the Jewish boy, the standing for the funeral, and the picture is consistent.⁹⁵⁸⁵⁹

Scholars do differ on one question: how 60:8 sits with verses such as 58:22, which speaks against affection for those who oppose God and His Messenger. A common answer distinguishes outward kindness and justice, which 60:8 permits and praises, from the inward affection that 58:22 rules out. Ibn Ḥajar puts it plainly in his commentary on al-Bukhārī: kindness, keeping ties and good treatment do not entail the love forbidden in 58:22, which covers those who fight and those who do not.¹⁰⁰ An Islamweb fatwa gives the same answer with quotations from Ibn Taymiyya, and reports al-Qarāfī, through Ibn ʿĀshūr, as saying that each verse applies to a different situation.⁷² On the practical question, how to treat the family next door, the answers converge: kindly and fairly.

For Muslims living as citizens of a non-Muslim state, two more verses carry weight. "O believers! Honour your obligations."⁷³ "Honour ˹your˺ pledges, for you will surely be accountable for them."⁷⁴ Whether citizenship, a visa and the ordinary contracts of life count as such pledges, so that keeping the law of the land becomes itself a religious duty except where it would require a sin, is a question contemporary scholars discuss at length, and it belongs to the post What Sharia Is (and Isn't).

The mosque and the congregation

The mosque is where many of these rights are exercised in public: the greetings, the inquiries after the sick, the funeral prayers, the collection for a family in trouble. The Prophet ﷺ said that prayer in congregation is twenty-seven times better than prayer alone,⁷⁵ and counted among the seven whom God shades on the Day of Judgment "a man whose heart is attached to the mosques" and two people who love each other for God's sake.⁷⁶ Muslim's collection adds that when people gather in one of God's houses to recite and study the Qur'an, tranquillity descends on them and mercy covers them.⁶⁷

How binding is the congregation? Here the schools part, and the next section sets them side by side. Women's attendance at the mosque has its own texts and debates, which are covered in the women in Islam post.

Where the schools differ

Almost everything in this post is agreed. The schools part company on legal details at the edges, and two of them are worth seeing because they show how the same hadith can be weighed differently. Positions are named only where I could find them in a source I could check.

The pre-emption question turns on two hadith in the same chapter of al-Bukhārī. Jābir reports that the Prophet ﷺ gave pre-emption in undivided property, and that once boundaries are fixed and roads laid out there is none.⁸² Abū Rāfiʿ sold a house to Saʿd ibn Abī Waqqāṣ for less than another buyer had offered, because he had heard: "The neighbour has more right than anyone else because of his nearness."⁸³ Al-Tirmidhī records that ʿUmar, ʿUthmān, Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī, Aḥmad and Isḥāq followed Jābir's report and gave the right only to a partner, while Sufyān al-Thawrī, Ibn al-Mubārak and the scholars of Kufa held that the neighbour has it too.⁸⁰ The Ḥanafī school, which grew out of Kufa, kept the neighbour in its list. It also cites Jābir's report that "the neighbour is most entitled to the right of pre-emption, and he should wait for its exercise even if he is absent", when the two share one road, which al-Albānī graded ṣaḥīḥ in Abū Dāwūd.⁹⁸ Al-Marghīnānī's al-Hidāya builds the order on these reports (the partner, then the sharer in the lane or water, then the neighbour) and limits the neighbour to the one whose property adjoins.⁷⁹ Ibn Qudāma replies in al-Mughnī that ṣaqab in Abū Rāfiʿ's report means nearness and need not mean pre-emption, that Jābir's report is explicit, and that Ibn al-Mundhir thought it the only firmly established report on the subject. He also records Aḥmad's view that a buyer who rejects the neighbour's claim should not be made to swear against it, because people have differed on the question.⁹⁶ Australian property law, of course, recognises no such right, so for a Muslim in Sydney this is history rather than practice; but it shows how seriously the early jurists took the neighbour's claim.

The Twelver Shia sources

On the substance of this post, Sunni and Shia sources run closely together. Al-Kāfī has whole chapters on kindness to parents, on keeping ties with relatives and on the rights of neighbours. In the first of them, graded ṣaḥīḥ by al-Majlisī and al-Behbūdī, Imam al-Ṣādiq explains 17:23 as treating parents well and not making them ask for what they need, even when they could manage, and not raising your voice above theirs.⁸⁴ The report on rejoining relatives who cut you off, and the report on neighbourliness, are quoted above.³⁸⁴⁸

The Risālat al-ḥuqūq deserves its own mention, because it gathers the whole subject into one text. It is a single, ordered list of fifty-one rights, running from the rights of God and of one's own self, through family, companions and neighbours, to the people of other faiths living under Muslim protection, whom one should not wrong "as long as they fulfil God's covenant."⁴⁷ On the mother it says "she carried you where no one carries anyone"; on the child, "he is from you and will be ascribed to you," so that the parent answers for the child's upbringing.⁸⁵

The treatise is reached through three early works: Ibn Shuʿba al-Ḥarrānī's Tuḥaf al-ʿuqūl and two books of al-Shaykh al-Ṣadūq, al-Khiṣāl and Man lā yaḥḍuruhu al-faqīh. The versions differ in wording, and in the Faqīh it comes without a chain, so it is classed as mursal there.⁸⁶ So its wording should not be quoted as firmly established, though what it says is largely what the Qur'an and the stronger reports already say.

What rests on what

A post about rights invites quotation, and some of the most quoted lines on this subject are weaker than their popularity suggests. Here is how the main ones stand.

None of this reduces the duty. Every weak saying above sits on top of a sound text that says much the same thing. It only matters that, when we quote the Prophet ﷺ, we quote what he is reliably reported to have said.

The rights map

Pick a relationship to see the main verses, the sound hadith, and what the duty looks like in practice. Without JavaScript all the cards are shown in order.

In Australia

The 2021 Census counted 813,392 people in Australia who gave Islam as their religion, 3.2% of the population.⁹⁰ Neither the ABS nor any other official body I could find publishes a count of mosques, and I would rather say that than repeat one of the round numbers that circulate online; local councils and the charity register know about individual mosques, but nobody seems to add them up.

The national body of Sunni imams is the Australian National Imams Council (ANIC), set up in 2006 as an umbrella for the state and territory councils of imams. It says it has more than 300 registered imams, runs the Australian Fatwa Council, and, when I checked on 13 October 2026, named Dr Ibrahim Abu Mohamed as Grand Mufti of Australia.⁹¹ Shia communities have their own centres and scholars, and the history of both is told in How Islam Came to Australia.

Much of the work this post describes happens without anyone calling it religious law. The Muslim Women's Association in Lakemba (now Muslim Women Australia), founded in 1983, was Australia's first welfare service for Muslim women and began by sheltering women escaping domestic violence, often in volunteers' own homes.⁹²⁹³ Mosques and their volunteers do much of the same work on a smaller scale, and the hadith about the daily charity owed by every joint of the body is a fair description of it.⁶⁸

A few things are particular to life here. Most Australian Muslims have non-Muslim neighbours, colleagues and in many cases relatives, so the texts on non-Muslims are not theoretical. Parents often live overseas, which turns kindness to them into phone calls, remittances and long flights, and the old-age care that 17:23 imagines happening at home can mean decisions about aged care that earlier jurists never faced. The texts do not settle those decisions for you. They tell you what the parent is owed (gentleness, provision, presence, prayer) and leave it to the family, and its scholars, to work out how to deliver it.

Glossary

ḥuqūq (sing. ḥaqq)

Rights; what is owed to someone. Writers distinguish what is owed to God from what is owed to people.

iḥsān

Doing a thing well, beyond the minimum. Used in 4:36 for kindness to parents and others.

birr

Goodness, dutiful kindness; birr al-wālidayn is dutifulness to parents. Used in 60:8 for kindness to non-hostile non-Muslims.

ṣilat al-raḥim

Keeping the ties of kinship (literally "joining the womb").

arḥām

Blood relatives.

nafaqa

Maintenance: the food, clothing and housing a husband owes his wife, and that a person owes other dependants.

jār

Neighbour; 4:36 names the "near and distant" neighbour.

muʿāhad

A non-Muslim living under a covenant or agreement of safety with Muslims.

shufʿa

Pre-emption: a partner's (and for the Ḥanafīs a neighbour's) right to buy property before an outsider.

jamāʿa

The congregation; prayer led by an imam with others.

farḍ kifāya

A communal obligation, met for everyone when enough people perform it.

ṣaḥīḥ, ḥasan, ḍaʿīf

Sound, good, weak: the main grades of a hadith. See How a Hadith Is Judged.

mursal

A report missing a link in its chain; in Shia usage, any report given without a full chain.

A research article, not a fatwa. This page sets out what the Qur'an and the sound hadith say about the rights of others, and how the schools have read them. Where a question touches your own family, your marriage, an inheritance or a dispute with a neighbour, take it to a qualified scholar you trust, and where Australian law applies, to a lawyer as well.

Sources

Qur'an quotations are Mustafa Khattab's The Clear Quran as shown on quran.com; his ˹ ˺ brackets mark words he supplies, and his dashes are given here as commas. Hadith references follow sunnah.com numbering; the grade given is the one shown there, with its grader. Reports in the two Ṣaḥīḥs carry no separate grade because the compilers' own acceptance is the grade. Twelver Shia reports are from al-Kāfī on Thaqalayn, with the gradings of al-Majlisī and al-Behbūdī shown there.

1. Qur'an 4:36 ("be kind to parents, relatives, orphans, the poor, near and distant neighbours, close friends, ˹needy˺ travellers"). Translation: Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran, as shown on quran.com: quran.com/4/36
2. Qur'an 17:23–24 ("never say to them ˹even˺ 'ugh,' nor yell at them", and the prayer "My Lord! Be merciful to them as they raised me when I was young"). Translation: Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran, as shown on quran.com: quran.com/17/23-24
3. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 5976 (Abū Bakra: among the greatest of the major sins, associating partners with God and being undutiful to parents): sunnah.com/bukhari:5976. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
4. Qur'an 31:14–15 (the mother bore the child "through hardship upon hardship"; "do not obey them" in associating partners with God, "Still keep their company in this world courteously"). Translation: Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran, as shown on quran.com: quran.com/31/14-15
5. Qur'an 30:21 ("He has placed between you compassion and mercy"). Translation: Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran, as shown on quran.com: quran.com/30/21
6. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 2587 (al-Nuʿmān ibn Bashīr: a gift to one child; "Be afraid of Allah, and be just to your children", and the gift was taken back): sunnah.com/bukhari:2587. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
7. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 5991 (ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr: the one who keeps ties is not the one who merely returns favours but the one who rejoins kin who cut him off): sunnah.com/bukhari:5991. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
8. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 6014 (ʿĀʾisha: Gabriel kept urging kindness to the neighbour until the Prophet ﷺ thought he would make him an heir): sunnah.com/bukhari:6014. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
9. Jāmiʿ al-Tirmidhī 1943 (Mujāhid: ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr has a sheep slaughtered and asks whether they have sent some to "our Jewish neighbour", citing the Gabriel hadith): sunnah.com/tirmidhi:1943. Graded ṣaḥīḥ by Darussalam, as shown on sunnah.com.
10. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 8a (ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb: the Hadith of Jibrīl; iḥsān is "That you worship Allah as if you are seeing Him"): sunnah.com/muslim:8a. In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
11. Qur'an 2:215 ("Whatever donations you give are for parents, relatives, orphans, the poor, and ˹needy˺ travellers"). Translation: Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran, as shown on quran.com: quran.com/2/215
12. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1240 (Abū Hurayra: "The rights of a Muslim on the Muslims are five": returning the greeting, visiting the sick, following funerals, accepting invitations, replying to the sneezer): sunnah.com/bukhari:1240. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
13. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 2162b (Abū Hurayra: "Six are the rights of a Muslim over another Muslim", adding sincere advice when it is asked for): sunnah.com/muslim:2162b. In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
14. al-Bukhārī, al-Adab al-mufrad, collection page on sunnah.com (chapters on parents, kinship, neighbours, orphans, guests and the sick): sunnah.com/adab. Al-Albānī divided it into Ṣaḥīḥ and Ḍaʿīf al-Adab al-mufrad, so each report there needs its own grade.
15. al-Ghazālī (d. 505/1111), Iḥyāʾ ʿulūm al-dīn, Book 15, Kitāb ādāb al-ulfa wa-l-ukhuwwa, tr. Muhtar Holland and James Pavlin as The Properties of Friendship and Brotherhood (Fons Vitae, 2024), whose third chapter covers duties to fellow Muslims, relatives, neighbours and rulers: publisher listing. Holland's earlier partial translation, On the Duties of Brotherhood (London: Latimer, 1975), was reviewed in IJMES: cambridge.org
16. ʿAlī ibn al-Ḥusayn Zayn al-ʿĀbidīn (d. 95/713), Risālat al-ḥuqūq (Treatise on Rights), tr. William C. Chittick, 51 rights, on al-islam.org: al-islam.org/treatise-rights-risalat-al-huquq-imam-ali-zayn-al-abidin
17. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 5971 (Abū Hurayra: who most deserves good companionship: "your mother" three times, then "your father"): sunnah.com/bukhari:5971. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
18. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 2551a (Abū Hurayra: humbled into the dust is the one whose parents reach old age with him and who still does not enter Paradise): sunnah.com/muslim:2551a. In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
19. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 5978 (Asmāʾ bint Abī Bakr: her mother, not a Muslim, came hoping for her kindness; the Prophet ﷺ told her to keep good relations; Ibn ʿUyayna links 60:8 to the episode): sunnah.com/bukhari:5978. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
20. Dar al-Iftāʾ al-Miṣriyya, fatwa no. 8320, "Is a wife obliged to serve her parents-in-law?", 24 March 2015 (not obliged; kindness and respect expected; help given is a favour; the husband carries the duty to his own parents): dar-alifta.org
21. Muhammad ibn Adam, Darul Iftaa (Leicester), "Relationship with one's in-laws", collected on IslamQA.org (Ḥanafī), 28 July 2012 ("no obligatory religious duties on either of the spouses" towards in-laws, though kindness is rewarded): islamqa.org
22. Qur'an 2:228 ("Women have rights similar to those of men equitably, although men have a degree ˹of responsibility˺ above them"). Translation: Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran, as shown on quran.com: quran.com/2/228
23. Qur'an 4:19 ("It is not permissible for you to inherit women against their will … Treat them fairly. If you happen to dislike them, you may hate something which Allah turns into a great blessing"). Translation: Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran, as shown on quran.com: quran.com/4/19
24. Sunan Abī Dāwūd 2142 (Muʿāwiya al-Qushayrī: feed her when you eat, clothe her when you clothe yourself, do not strike the face, do not revile her): sunnah.com/abudawud:2142. Graded ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ by al-Albānī, as shown on sunnah.com.
25. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 1468b (Abū Hurayra: "A believing man should not hate a believing woman"; if he dislikes one trait he will be pleased with another): sunnah.com/muslim:1468b. In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
26. Jāmiʿ al-Tirmidhī 3895 (ʿĀʾisha: "The best of you is the best to his wives, and I am the best of you to my wives"): sunnah.com/tirmidhi:3895. Graded ṣaḥīḥ by Darussalam, as shown on sunnah.com.
27. Jāmiʿ al-Tirmidhī 1162 (Abū Hurayra: the most complete believers in faith are those best in character, and the best of you are the best to their wives): sunnah.com/tirmidhi:1162. Graded ḥasan by Darussalam, as shown on sunnah.com.
28. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 7138 (Ibn ʿUmar: "everyone of you is a guardian and responsible for his charges": the man over his household, the woman over her husband's house and children): sunnah.com/bukhari:7138. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
29. Qur'an 66:6 ("O believers! Protect yourselves and your families from a Fire …"). Translation: Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran, as shown on quran.com: quran.com/66/6
30. Sunan Abī Dāwūd 495 (ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr: command children to pray at seven, discipline at ten, and separate their beds): sunnah.com/abudawud:495. Graded ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ by al-Albānī, as shown on sunnah.com.
31. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 1623e (the same episode: "Fear Allah, and observe equity in case of your children"): sunnah.com/muslim:1623e. In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
32. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 5997 (Abū Hurayra: the Prophet ﷺ kisses al-Ḥasan; al-Aqraʿ has ten children and has kissed none; "Whoever is not merciful to others will not be treated mercifully"): sunnah.com/bukhari:5997. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
33. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 5995 (ʿĀʾisha: the mother who split one date between her two daughters; whoever is tried with daughters and treats them well, they will be a shield for him from the Fire): sunnah.com/bukhari:5995. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
34. Qur'an 4:1 ("And be mindful of Allah, in Whose Name you appeal to one another, and ˹honour˺ family ties"). Translation: Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran, as shown on quran.com: quran.com/4/1
35. Qur'an 47:22–23 ("… spread corruption throughout the land and sever your ˹ties of˺ kinship!"). Translation: Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran, as shown on quran.com: quran.com/47/22-23
36. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 5984 (Jubayr ibn Muṭʿim: "The person who severs the bond of kinship will not enter Paradise"): sunnah.com/bukhari:5984. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
37. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 5986 (Anas: whoever wants his provision widened and his life lengthened should keep ties with his kin): sunnah.com/bukhari:5986. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
38. al-Kulaynī, al-Kāfī, vol. 2, book 1, chapter 68 ("Good relations with relatives"), hadith 24 (Ibn Sinān's cousin keeps cutting him off; Imam al-Ṣādiq: if you keep the tie while he cuts it, God keeps it for you both). Graded ṣaḥīḥ by al-Majlisī and al-Behbūdī, as shown on Thaqalayn: thaqalayn.net/hadith/2/1/68/24
39. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 2625a (Ibn ʿUmar: Gabriel kept impressing on the Prophet ﷺ the kind treatment of the neighbour): sunnah.com/muslim:2625a. In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
40. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 6016 (Abū Shurayḥ: "By Allah, he does not believe" (three times): the one whose neighbour is not safe from his harm): sunnah.com/bukhari:6016. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
41. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 2625b (Abū Dharr: when you make broth, add water and send some to your neighbour): sunnah.com/muslim:2625b. In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
42. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 2259 (ʿĀʾisha asks which of two neighbours to send a gift to: "To the one whose door is nearer to you"): sunnah.com/bukhari:2259. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
43. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 6018 (Abū Hurayra: whoever believes in God and the Last Day should not harm his neighbour, should honour his guest, and should speak good or keep silent): sunnah.com/bukhari:6018. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
44. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 6019 (Abū Shurayḥ al-ʿAdawī: honour the neighbour and the guest; hospitality is three days, the first day and night with special care, and beyond that it is charity; "talk what is good or keep quiet"): sunnah.com/bukhari:6019. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
45. al-Adab al-mufrad 109 (forty houses in front, behind, to the right and to the left; the report ends with al-Ḥasan al-Baṣrī, not the Prophet ﷺ): sunnah.com/adab:109. The words are al-Ḥasan's own.
46. al-Kulaynī, al-Kāfī, vol. 2, book 4, chapter 25 ("Boundaries of neighbourhood"): hadith 1 (from the Prophet ﷺ, graded majhūl by al-Majlisī and ṣaḥīḥ by al-Behbūdī) and hadith 2 (from Imam al-Bāqir, graded ḥasan by al-Majlisī and ṣaḥīḥ by al-Behbūdī), as shown on Thaqalayn: thaqalayn.net/chapter/2/4/25
47. Risālat al-ḥuqūq, no. 32, the right of the neighbour ("guard him when he is absent, honour him when he is present"), and no. 51, the people under the protection of Islam, tr. Chittick: al-islam.org/…/rights-others
48. al-Kulaynī, al-Kāfī, vol. 2, book 4, chapter 24 ("Rights of neighbours"), hadith 10 (good neighbourliness develops the land and lengthens life; most of the other reports in the chapter are graded weak or majhūl). Graded ṣaḥīḥ by al-Majlisī and al-Behbūdī, as shown on Thaqalayn: thaqalayn.net/hadith/2/4/24/10
49. Qur'an 93:6–10 (verse 6 recalls that God found him an orphan and sheltered him; verses 9–10: "So do not oppress the orphan, nor repulse the beggar"). Translation: Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran, as shown on quran.com: quran.com/93/6-10
50. Qur'an 4:2 ("Give orphans their wealth ˹when they reach maturity˺"). Translation: Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran, as shown on quran.com: quran.com/4/2
51. Qur'an 4:10 ("those who unjustly consume orphans' wealth ˹in fact˺ consume nothing but fire into their bellies"). Translation: Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran, as shown on quran.com: quran.com/4/10
52. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 2766 (Abū Hurayra: the seven destructive sins, among them consuming an orphan's wealth): sunnah.com/bukhari:2766. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
53. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 5304 (Sahl ibn Saʿd: "I and the one who looks after an orphan will be like this in Paradise", holding two fingers together): sunnah.com/bukhari:5304. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
54. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 5353 (Abū Hurayra: the one who works for a widow or a poor person is like a fighter in God's cause, or one who prays all night and fasts all day): sunnah.com/bukhari:5353. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
55. Qur'an 76:8–9 (they give food, despite their desire for it, to the poor, the orphan and the captive, "seeking neither reward nor thanks"). Translation: Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran, as shown on quran.com: quran.com/76/8-9
56. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 5649 (Abū Mūsā: "Feed the hungry, visit the sick, and set free the captives", under al-Bukhārī's chapter heading that visiting the sick is obligatory): sunnah.com/bukhari:5649. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
57. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 2569 (Abū Hurayra: on the Day of Resurrection God says "O son of Adam, I was sick but you did not visit Me", and the same of hunger and thirst): sunnah.com/muslim:2569. In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
58. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1356 (Anas: the Prophet ﷺ visits a sick Jewish boy who used to serve him): sunnah.com/bukhari:1356. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
59. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 1312 (Sahl ibn Ḥunayf and Qays ibn Saʿd stand for a funeral; told it was a Jew's, the Prophet ﷺ had said: "Is it not a living being (soul)?"): sunnah.com/bukhari:1312. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
60. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 1631 (Abū Hurayra: when a person dies his deeds end except three: ongoing charity, knowledge that benefits, and a righteous child "who prays for him"): sunnah.com/muslim:1631. In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
61. Sunan Abī Dāwūd 5142 (Abū Usayd al-Sāʿidī: honouring parents after their death by praying for them, carrying out their wishes, keeping the ties that run through them and honouring their friends): sunnah.com/abudawud:5142. Graded ḍaʿīf (weak) by al-Albānī, as shown on sunnah.com.
62. Qur'an 49:10 ("The believers are but one brotherhood, so make peace between your brothers"). Translation: Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran, as shown on quran.com: quran.com/49/10
63. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 13 (Anas: none of you has faith until he wishes for his brother what he likes for himself): sunnah.com/bukhari:13. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
64. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 6011 (al-Nuʿmān ibn Bashīr: the believers in mercy and affection are like one body): sunnah.com/bukhari:6011. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
65. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 6026 (Abū Mūsā: a believer to a believer is like a building whose parts hold each other up): sunnah.com/bukhari:6026. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
66. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 2442 (Ibn ʿUmar: a Muslim is a brother of a Muslim; he does not wrong him or hand him over; whoever meets his brother's need, God meets his): sunnah.com/bukhari:2442. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
67. Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim 2699a (Abū Hurayra: whoever relieves a believer's hardship, God relieves his; people gathered in a mosque to study the Qur'an; lineage does not advance the one slow in good deeds): sunnah.com/muslim:2699a. In Muslim's Ṣaḥīḥ.
68. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 2989 (Abū Hurayra: a charity is due for every joint each day: judging fairly, helping a man onto his mount, a good word, steps to prayer, removing harm from the road): sunnah.com/bukhari:2989. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
69. Qur'an 60:8 ("Allah does not forbid you from dealing kindly and fairly with those who have neither fought nor driven you out of your homes"). Translation: Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran, as shown on quran.com: quran.com/60/8
70. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 3166 (ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr: whoever kills a person under covenant (muʿāhad) will not smell the fragrance of Paradise): sunnah.com/bukhari:3166. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
71. Sunan Abī Dāwūd 3052 (from a number of Companions: whoever wrongs a person under covenant, diminishes his right, burdens him beyond his ability or takes from him without consent, the Prophet ﷺ will plead against him): sunnah.com/abudawud:3052. Graded ṣaḥīḥ by al-Albānī, as shown on sunnah.com.
72. Islamweb, fatwa no. 329059, "Hating kufr and kaafirs in light of verses [58:22] and [60:8]", 14 July 2016 (60:8 not abrogated; kindness and fair dealing permitted with the non-hostile; affection of the heart treated separately, quoting Ibn Taymiyya, Ibn Ḥajar, and al-Qarāfī via Ibn ʿĀshūr; al-Qarāfī's view is given here as the fatwa reports it, not checked against his own text): islamweb.net
73. Qur'an 5:1 ("O believers! Honour your obligations"). Translation: Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran, as shown on quran.com: quran.com/5/1
74. Qur'an 17:34 ("Honour ˹your˺ pledges, for you will surely be accountable for them"). Translation: Mustafa Khattab, The Clear Quran, as shown on quran.com: quran.com/17/34
75. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 645 (Ibn ʿUmar: prayer in congregation is twenty-seven times superior to prayer alone): sunnah.com/bukhari:645. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
76. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 660 (Abū Hurayra: seven whom God shades, among them "a man whose heart is attached to the mosques" and two who love each other for God's sake): sunnah.com/bukhari:660. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
77. In English: Muhammad Abu Bakr Badhib, "What Is the Ruling on Performing Prayer in Congregation (Salat al-Jamaʿa)?", SeekersGuidance, 15 December 2024 (Ḥanafī and Mālikī: confirmed sunna as the established position, with a communal-obligation view in each; Shāfiʿī: communal obligation; Ḥanbalī: individual obligation, though the prayer alone is still valid): seekersguidance.org
78. al-Sīstānī, Islamic Laws, "Congregational prayers (ṣalāt al-jamāʿah)", ruling 1379 ("It is recommended to perform the daily prayers in congregation", and more so the ṣubḥ, maghrib and ʿishāʾ prayers): sistani.org/english/book/48/2268
79. al-Marghīnānī (d. 593/1197), al-Hidāya fī sharḥ Bidāyat al-mubtadī, ed. Ṭalāl Yūsuf (Beirut: Dār Iḥyāʾ al-Turāth al-ʿArabī, 2004), vol. 4, pp. 308–309, Kitāb al-shufʿa (pre-emption is due "to the partner in the property itself, then to the partner in its rights, such as water and the road, then to the neighbour"; the neighbour meant is the adjoining one, whose house backs onto the property; argued from Jābir's and Abū Rāfiʿ's reports, with al-Shāfiʿī's contrary view and evidence; my translation): shamela.ws/book/11820/951 (Arabic)
80. Jāmiʿ al-Tirmidhī 1370 (Jābir: no pre-emption once boundaries are drawn; al-Tirmidhī reports ʿUmar, ʿUthmān, Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī, Aḥmad and Isḥāq as giving it only to a partner, and al-Thawrī, Ibn al-Mubārak and the scholars of Kufa as giving it to the neighbour): sunnah.com/tirmidhi:1370. Graded ṣaḥīḥ by Darussalam, as shown on sunnah.com.
81. al-Kulaynī, al-Kāfī, vol. 5, book 2, chapter 138 ("Pre-emption"): hadith 5, asked about a neighbour, "pre-emption in sales is when he is a partner" (graded ṣaḥīḥ on its face by al-Majlisī and ṣaḥīḥ by al-Behbūdī); hadith 7, only for two partners who have not divided (graded ṣaḥīḥ by al-Majlisī), as shown on Thaqalayn: thaqalayn.net/chapter/5/2/138
82. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 2257 (Jābir: pre-emption (shufʿa) in every undivided joint property; once boundaries are fixed and roads laid out there is none; the same report is at 2214): sunnah.com/bukhari:2257. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
83. Ṣaḥīḥ al-Bukhārī 2258 (Abū Rāfiʿ sells to Saʿd below the higher offer because he heard: "The neighbor has more right than anyone else because of his nearness"): sunnah.com/bukhari:2258. In al-Bukhārī's Ṣaḥīḥ.
84. al-Kulaynī, al-Kāfī, vol. 2, book 1, chapter 69 ("Kindness to parents"), hadith 1 (Imam al-Ṣādiq on 17:23: treat them well, do not make them ask for what they need, do not raise your voice over theirs). Graded ṣaḥīḥ by al-Majlisī and al-Behbūdī, as shown on Thaqalayn: thaqalayn.net/hadith/2/1/69/1
85. Risālat al-ḥuqūq, nos. 22–24, the rights of the mother, the father and the child, tr. Chittick: al-islam.org/…/rights-womb-relatives
86. WikiShia, "Essay of Rights" (transmitted in Ibn Shuʿba al-Ḥarrānī, Tuḥaf al-ʿuqūl, and in al-Ṣadūq's al-Khiṣāl and Man lā yaḥḍuruhu al-faqīh; the versions differ in wording, and the Faqīh version is given without a chain, so it is classed mursal): en.wikishia.net/view/Essay_of_Rights
87. Sunan al-Nasāʾī 3104 (Muʿāwiya ibn Jāhima from his father: "Then stay with her, for Paradise is beneath her feet"): sunnah.com/nasai:3104. Graded ṣaḥīḥ by Darussalam, as shown on sunnah.com.
88. "al-Janna taḥta aqdām al-ummahāt", gradings as collected in Dorar's hadith encyclopedia: the Anas version (al-Quḍāʿī, Musnad al-shihāb 119; al-Dūlābī, al-Kunā 1911; al-Khaṭīb, al-Jāmiʿ li-akhlāq al-rāwī 1702) graded ḍaʿīf by al-Albānī, Ḍaʿīf al-Jāmiʿ 2666, and munkar by Ibn al-Qaysarānī (as cited in al-Munāwī, Fayḍ al-qadīr), though al-Zurqānī (Mukhtaṣar al-maqāṣid 348) accepted it; the Ibn ʿAbbās version with the addition (Ibn ʿAdī, al-Kāmil, who calls its narrator Mūsā ibn Muḥammad ibn ʿAṭāʾ munkar al-ḥadīth) graded munkar by al-ʿUqaylī (as cited in Lisān al-mīzān 8/217) and mawḍūʿ (fabricated) by al-Albānī, al-Silsila al-ḍaʿīfa 593: dorar.net (Arabic)
89. Jāmiʿ al-Tirmidhī 1899 (ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr: "The Lord's pleasure is in the parent's pleasure"; al-Tirmidhī adds that the version stopping at ʿAbd Allāh ibn ʿAmr, not raised to the Prophet ﷺ, is more correct): sunnah.com/tirmidhi:1899. Graded ḥasan, as shown on sunnah.com.
90. Australian Bureau of Statistics, 2021 Census QuickStats: Australia (Islam 813,392 people, 3.2%), checked 13 October 2026: abs.gov.au/census/find-census-data/quickstats/2021/AUS
91. Australian National Imams Council, "About ANIC" (established 2006 as the umbrella for state and territory councils of imams; over 300 registered imams; the Australian Fatwa Council; Dr Ibrahim Abu Mohamed named as Grand Mufti), checked 13 October 2026: anic.org.au/about-anic
92. Peggy Giakoumelos, "'I've spent decades supporting Australia's vulnerable Muslim women: I won't stop now'", SBS News, 19 February 2020 (the Muslim Women's Association, founded 1983 as Australia's first welfare service for Muslim women, began by sheltering women escaping domestic violence; Abla Kadous of the Islamic Women's Welfare Association in Lakemba): sbs.com.au
93. University of Sydney, Grassroots Activism in Education database, "Muslim Women Association [1983–]" (Lakemba; now Muslim Women Australia): grassroots-activism-education.sydney.edu.au/Group/606
94. al-Mawsūʿa al-fiqhiyya al-Kuwaytiyya (Kuwait: Ministry of Awqāf and Islamic Affairs), vol. 27, pp. 165–167, "Ṣalāt al-jamāʿa", al-ḥukm al-taklīfī (Ḥanafīs in the soundest view and most Mālikīs: a confirmed sunna for men, close to obligatory in strength for the Ḥanafīs, some of whom call it wājib; Shāfiʿīs in the soundest view: a communal obligation, also held by the Ḥanafīs al-Karkhī and al-Ṭaḥāwī and, per al-Māzarī, by some Mālikīs; some Mālikīs: a communal duty for the town and a sunna in each mosque; Ḥanbalīs: an individual obligation that is not a condition of validity, against Ibn ʿAqīl; with references to al-Kāsānī, Badāʾiʿ 1/155, Ibn ʿĀbidīn 1/371, al-Dasūqī 1/319–320, Mughnī al-muḥtāj 1/229 and Kashshāf al-qināʿ 1/454–455): shamela.ws/book/11430/16936 (Arabic)
95. Ibn Qudāma (d. 620/1223), al-Mughnī (Cairo: Maktabat al-Qāhira), vol. 2, pp. 130–131, Bāb al-imāma wa-ṣalāt al-jamāʿa (congregation is obligatory for the five prayers; Mālik, al-Thawrī, Abū Ḥanīfa and al-Shāfiʿī did not make it obligatory; it is not a condition of the prayer's validity, as Aḥmad stated): shamela.ws/book/8463/578 (Arabic)
96. Ibn Qudāma, al-Mughnī (Cairo: Maktabat al-Qāhira), vol. 5, pp. 229–231, Kitāb al-shufʿa, masʾala 4012 (no pre-emption for a neighbour, the view of ʿUmar, ʿUthmān, Mālik, al-Shāfiʿī and others; the Ḥanafī order of partner, sharer in the road, then neighbour, with their evidence; his reply that ṣaqab means nearness, that Jābir's report is explicit, and Ibn al-Mundhir's remark that it alone is firmly established; Aḥmad's view that one who rejects neighbour pre-emption is not made to swear against it, since people have differed): shamela.ws/book/8463/2113 (Arabic)
97. al-Mawsūʿa al-fiqhiyya al-Kuwaytiyya, vol. 26, pp. 138–142, "Shufʿa", asbāb al-shufʿa (all agree the partner in undivided property has it; Mālikīs, Shāfiʿīs and Ḥanbalīs deny it to the neighbour and to the sharer in rights; the Ḥanafīs, with Ibn Shubruma, al-Thawrī and Ibn Abī Laylā, grant it to the adjoining owner, but not to a neighbour across a through road or to a tenant): shamela.ws/book/11430/16144 (Arabic)
98. Sunan Abī Dāwūd 3518 (Jābir: "The neighbour is most entitled to the right of pre-emption, and he should wait for its exercise even if he is absent", when the two share one road): sunnah.com/abudawud:3518. Graded ṣaḥīḥ by al-Albānī, as shown on sunnah.com.
99. Dar al-Iftāʾ al-Miṣriyya (Amānat al-Fatwā), fatwa no. 3867, "Ṣiḥḥat ḥadīth: al-janna taḥta aqdām al-ummahāt", 31 March 2014 (traces the Ibn ʿAbbās version to Ibn ʿAdī and the Anas version to al-Quḍāʿī, al-Dūlābī and al-Khaṭīb; quotes Ibn Ṭāhir, via al-Munāwī, that its narrators are unknown and the hadith munkar; concludes that the meaning is sound and the chain weak, and that it may be used to encourage kindness to parents): dar-alifta.org (Arabic)
100. Ibn Ḥajar al-ʿAsqalānī (d. 852/1449), Fatḥ al-bārī (Cairo: al-Maṭbaʿa al-Salafiyya), vol. 5, p. 233, on al-Bukhārī's chapter on gifts to polytheists (hadith 2620, Asmāʾ's mother): kindness, keeping ties and good treatment do not entail the love and affection forbidden in 58:22, which covers those who fight and those who do not: shamela.ws/book/1673/3015 (Arabic)