Q: A father has abandoned his responsibilities towards his minor and adult children who have not completed their university education yet. He had also divorced his wife and married another and his children feel that he does not wish to see them because they are living with their mother since five years ago.

1- Are the children allowed to obey their mother who asks them to break up with their father and not speak with him (so that he my give up the behavior and feel guilty)? Knowing that she provides for their life requirements.

2- Are the children permitted to cut relations with their father by themselves (so that he may give up this behavior and feel guilty)?

A1: Just abandoning maintaining one’s children and wife does not cancel father’s guardianship over his family or his paternal rights. Thus, it is not permissible for the children to cut ties of kinship with their father and isolate themselves from him and they are not allowed to obey their mother in this matter.

A2: It is mentioned that children are not allowed to break up with their father just for not fulfilling his responsibilities towards them and it is not permissible to cut ties of kinship whit him be it by themselves or at their mother’s request. They can keep in contact with their father and urge him to perform his duty of providing for his children’s requirements and taking care of them by resorting to other ways of enjoining good and forbidding evil.