Umm (the mother: her rights, status and rulings in fiqh)

Umm is the origin of a thing, and the mother; the plural is ummahat. The mother by birth is the mother in the true sense; a grandmother, however high, is a mother in the figurative sense; and a woman who has nursed a child without bearing it is the child's mother by milk. ⁵

Honouring the parents is obligatory for a Muslim, even if they are sinful or unbelievers. They must be obeyed in what is not disobedience to God; if they are unbelievers, one keeps company with them in the world with kindness, without obeying them in unbelief. ¹ The mother takes precedence over the father in honour, according to the hadith in which a man asked who had the greatest claim to his good company, and was told "your mother" three times before "your father". ¹

The jurists agree that marriage to a blood mother, however high, is forbidden, and a milk mother is the same. ¹ The jurists differ on which parts of a mother may be seen, and all agree that it must be without desire. A mother may travel with her son, as he is one of her closest mahrams. ¹²

The jurists agree that parents with no earnings or property must be maintained by their children, whether the parents are Muslims or not. ² Custody goes to a Muslim mother by agreement, unless there is a bar, and is an obligation if no one else can do it. ²

A mother has three cases: a sixth as a fixed share when the deceased left a child or two or more siblings; a third of the whole when there is no child and fewer than two siblings; and a third of the remainder in the two cases known as the two Gharawain (the Umariyyatan), so called from Umar's judgement. ²³

Parents are not included in a bequest to relatives, since they inherit and cannot be excluded; the hadith says there is no bequest to an heir. ² Most jurists hold that a mother has no guardianship over a minor's property, though a bequest may be made to her. ³ She has no authority to marry a daughter according to the majority; Abu Hanifa, Zufar and al-Hasan, and Abu Yusuf, allow her authority when there is no agnate. ³

The hadd for theft is not applied to a mother who steals from her child's property, nor the hadd for false accusation if she accuses her child, and parents are not punished for the rights of the children. ³⁴ A parent is not retaliated against for killing a child, following the hadith "a father is not retaliated against for his child"; the Malikis allow it where the parent intended to kill. ⁴ One parent's testimony for the other, or for the child, is not accepted by most scholars. ⁴

A child may not go to fard kifaya jihad without his Muslim parents' leave. ⁴ A father or mother may beat a child or an insane person to correct his bad habits. ⁴