Question

　　My father has never cared about me and never treated me nicely ever since my childhood. I am over 30 years old now, and I have serious problems in my life because of him. He is not responsible, never paid for my education, never helped me to be myself, and always irrationally accuses me and insists on that in order to make me feel bad. He wastes his money on useless stuff but does not help me. He never took me to a hospital and never cared about my health, and I have some health problems now. He is a perfect liar and has even argued about moral things and accused me of insisting to follow inarguable morals just because that hurts me. He has a problem, all he does is annoy me and mentally and physically attack me, many times seriously. I always reach a dead end in any argument with him. He is just on the opposite of everything, while I am not a bad person and have been trying to be a good person ever since my childhood, and everyone who knows me knows that, but my father is just against me and only worries about himself. He has even given me a bad reputation among the people. I cannot accept him anymore. I want to leave him forever and take care of my life and be a good, productive person who benefits society rather than waste the rest of my life with him while he enjoys attacking me. While I think about that, I find myself stuck in the child-parent relationship according to our religion but, again, my heart and mind cannot bear it anymore. How could I be forced to go against my heart and own satisfaction to such limit? I am human, and I have lost my life and now need to recover. I need peace and need to be healthy and well, while my father always insists on attacking me, and that makes me crazy, and now I am really losing my mind. Would I be sinful if I decided to leave him in such situation in order to worry about recovering my own life rather than waste the rest of it in a useless, harmful relationship? I still believe that the religion tells us to ask our own heart, and believe me, my heart cannot do it anymore, and I am losing even more now. Is our religion not merciful enough?

　　Answer

　　Assalamu alaykum wa rahmatullah.

　　Your message shows a lot of anger, regret, and sadness. I understand your feelings, and you did the right thing by asking what the solution is according to what Allah wants from us. Before I give you my sincere advice, I want you to understand certain facts of life:

　　1- Allah, the Most Wise, created us to worship Him alone, and He sent Messengers and revealed books for people to follow.

　　2- We were created from nothing, and Allah gave us life, and we shall all return to Him, Exalted be He.

　　3- Life is a test, and everything in it is to see who is grateful and who patiently applies the orders of Allah.

　　4- We do not choose our parents, nor do we choose our children and relatives.

　　Having said that, you need to witness the Wisdom of Allah, you are being tested with your father to see whether you will remain obedient to Allah or not. Many people have suffered a difficult past that affects the future, and their mind is still trapped in the past, which hinders any means of success in their present and future life. Allah is the Most Just, and He is the Most Merciful.

　　You might ask why I mentioned these facts while they are obvious. The reason is that people often do not build actions on the obvious; they rather build their actions on their desires. If you have certainty in what is mentioned above, you will enjoy your life regardless of what you are facing in it.

　　If something constitutes difficulty, you will believe that Allah is testing you to see your patience, and He promised the patient ones a great reward. Nothing is wasted when you seek rewards from Allah.

　　In our beautiful religion, we are ordered to be kind to the parents even if they are not. You seek rewards from Allah by being kind to them regardless of their reactions or what they did in the past. Allah made your parents the means to your existence, and that is a great favor! The verses of the Quran and the hadiths of the Prophet state that you should be kind to them; they are one of the gates to Paradise, and the one who witnesses his parents when they are old in age and they are not the reason for him to enter Paradise is a loser.

　　Relieve yourself from stress, forget your past, and do not let it affect you; and be kind to your father, do not expect anything from him, and seek rewards from Allah alone. Focus on what benefits you, and do not busy yourself with blaming others or your father; there is no benefit in that. Rather, it only contains more misery. Guard your prayers, perform thikr (expressions of remembrance of Allah) Allah, pray in the masjid, do good deeds and help others, and focus on what is good for you.

　　You can have your personal life, family, separate house, etc. and still visit your father and be kind to him. Being kind to him does not hinder you from being a successful person; take the means to be successful, and at the same time take all the means to be kind to your father.

　　What you think is a bad thing for you might be the best thing ever, and Allah knows best. So be patient and seek rewards from Allah.