Kinship Ties (Ṣilat al-Raḥim)
Parents, children & kin · Parents, children & kin · The womb-bond that must not be cut
Arabic names the kinship bond after the womb — raḥim — and the tradition hears in it an echo of God's own mercy: to keep the tie is to be kept, to sever it is to be severed.
At a glance
| Root | Raḥim (womb) — from the same root as al-Raḥmān, the Merciful |
|---|---|
| Key verses | Qurʾān 4:1 · 13:21 · 47:22–23 |
| Warning | “The severer of kinship ties will not enter Paradise” (Bukhārī & Muslim) |
| Higher form | Maintaining ties with those who cut you off |
The Qurʾān opens Sūrat al-Nisāʾ by joining reverence for God to reverence for "the wombs" — the ties of kinship (4:1). Those "who join what God has commanded to be joined" are praised (13:21), and the counter-image is severe: "would you then, if you turned away, spread corruption in the land and sever your kinship ties? Those are the ones God has cursed" (47:22–23). The hadith corpus matches the register: "the severer will not enter Paradise" (Bukhārī and Muslim), while ṣilat al-raḥim is promised expansion in provision and lifespan.
The tradition's higher standard is unilateral. "The one who maintains ties is not the one who merely reciprocates," the Prophet said, "but the one who, when his kin cut him off, joins the tie" (Bukhārī). Kinship duty is thus not a ledger of exchanges; it survives coldness, ingratitude and distance. Jurists graded its circles — parents, then children, siblings, and outward — and attached concrete forms: visiting, giving, defending, and the simple maintenance of contact.
The bond is tested hardest by a relative in trouble — poverty, disgrace, or the afflictions the tradition treats as both sin and sickness, such as intoxicants, whose harm the Qurʾān names directly (5:90–91). The classical ethic holds the two duties together: naṣīḥa, sincere counsel that does not flatter the wrong, and the unbroken tie, which does not abandon the wrongdoer. Enjoining right is itself an act of kinship when done with mercy; cutting off the struggling relative, the tradition warns, is the severance the texts condemn.
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Curated reference on Islamic belief and thought. On matters where traditions differ, positions are attributed rather than adjudicated; verify points of doctrine with qualified scholars.