Family, community and life stages
Islamic Studies · GCSE · The School
Duties in both directions
The Quran places the care of parents immediately after the command to worship Allah alone (17:23), forbidding even a word of irritation to them in old age. Parents in turn owe children a name, education, and fair treatment between them. Marriage is a contract with stated rights on both sides, including the mahr given to the wife as her own property.
The rites
BIRTH: the adhan whispered in the newborn's ear (many scholars call it recommended, not required), naming, aqiqah, and circumcision for boys. MARRIAGE: a contract made by an offer and an acceptance, which gives the wife a mahr and is usually followed by a walimah. The schools differ on its conditions. The Hanafi, Shafi'i and Hanbali schools require witnesses when the contract is made. The Maliki school allows them as late as before the marriage is consummated. The Maliki, Shafi'i and Hanbali schools require a wali (guardian) for the bride. The Hanafi school does not require one for an adult woman. DEATH: washing and shrouding the body, the funeral prayer, and burial without delay — simply, facing the qiblah, with the community expected to attend.
Contemporary debate
Muslims today debate the roles of women in mosque leadership and public life, forced versus arranged marriage, and how family law interacts with British civil law — including that an Islamic marriage not civilly registered leaves a spouse without legal protection. Forced marriage is a crime in England and Wales, and a Hanafi fatwa on MuftiSays says it is not permitted in Islam. The schools also differ on a bride's consent. Egypt's Dar al-Ifta says the Hanafi school does not let a guardian marry off an adult woman without her consent. It says the Maliki and Shafi'i schools let a father marry off a virgin daughter without her permission. The Kuwaiti Encyclopedia of Islamic Jurisprudence, quoted on IslamWeb, says the main Hanbali view agrees with them. A Shafi'i answer on SeekersGuidance adds conditions, and says jurists consider it wrong to do this against her clear objection. Dar al-Ifta itself follows the Hanafi view. It rules that an adult woman may not be married off without her consent, even to a suitable match. Naming these accurately is what a strong evaluative answer does.
Here is an imagined wedding, with made-up details. A few days before it, Amina's family holds a henna night. Then Amina and Khalid hold their nikah, the marriage contract. Sound Vision calls it a solemn contract between bride and groom. Khalid gives Amina her mahr, a bridal gift (4:4). Later the families hold the walimah, the wedding feast, and guests eat dishes from the family's home region. Mufti Muhammad ibn Adam of Darul Iftaa Leicester, writing for Seekers Guidance, calls the walimah a sunnah, a practice of the Prophet, and strongly recommended. Test each part: does it have its own source, or does it come from family and place? The nikah with its mahr has a source. So does the feast. The henna night is different. Sound Vision lists henna events among customs from South Asia, the UAE, Egypt and Malaysia, and gives no religious source for them. The regional dishes come from the family's home. Sound Vision also warns that not all Muslim marriage customs are necessarily in line with Islamic values. If in doubt, ask a qualified scholar. On the sources used here, the result is two parts with a source and two customs.
Financial rights within the family
Islamic family teaching assigns specific financial rights rather than leaving them to custom. The mahr is the wife's own property and not the family's. A husband is held responsible for maintenance of the household, and a wife's own income and property remain hers. Inheritance is set out in fixed shares, distributed among a defined group of relatives rather than at the will of the deceased, and Muslim scholars discuss at length how these provisions interact with a system such as English law, where a will is needed for them to take effect at all. Naming a right specifically is far stronger than describing family life in general terms.
Divorce: permitted, discouraged, and contested in the detail
Divorce is permitted in Islam and consistently presented as a last resort, with a waiting period intended to allow reconciliation and to establish parentage, and with arbitration from both families encouraged first. Women may initiate the ending of a marriage, and the mechanisms and conditions for doing so are the subject of long-standing scholarly discussion rather than a single agreed procedure. In Britain there is a further practical layer: a religious ceremony that was never civilly registered leaves a spouse without legal protection on separation, which is a live issue in the community. Name the disagreement as disagreement and point to a qualified scholar; do not resolve it in an exam answer.