Parents forbidding service to an infirm spiritual guide and teacher

Question

If someone’s spiritual guide or teacher is permanently ill and, owing to the weakness of illness and the demands of natural old age, is so infirm that at all times he needs someone else’s care, and he is completely alone — with neither wife nor children — and the student or disciple wants to serve him, but the parents forbid serving him and even going to him, since the parents are strangers to a religious environment, religious education and the company of the righteous, whereas the disciple and student, by the…

Answer

The station of the spiritual guide and the teacher is indeed lofty; even if some stranger is in such need of care that there is no one to look after him, there is a command to look after him too. The parents have no right to forbid service to the teacher and the guide, provided that, because of it, no deficiency arises in the necessary service of the parents.

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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