Question
My mother is not a practicing Muslim while I am. During certain hours, there is no water supply at home. It becomes difficult to clean the house to perform salah. I want her to clean it as I will be too tired to stand for performing salah later while she wants me to clean it. Two people cannot clean it as water is limited. This results in fights between us during which we say and do hurtful things to each other. I do not want to sin. I get tired easily when doing household chores.
Answer
Assalamu alaykum,
Thank you for your question. Sister, I am very confused at the idea of the salah making you too tired to clean the house. Perhaps you have a health problem? Perhaps you are reciting several chapters of the Qur’an during your prayer? One obligatory salah can be prayed in five minutes.
Obligations first
Allah Most High has not made this religion difficult, and ours is the middle way. Our religion involves a variety of obligations, including respecting one’s parents, maintaining cleanliness, and obligatory prayer. Your focus should be to find a way to fulfill these duties altogether.
I don’t agree with you asking your mother to clean the house, whether she is practicing or not, nor do I agree with you doing it by yourself. Consider how the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) lived. Hisham (a companion) said, “I asked ‘A’isha, ‘What did the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, do in his house?‘ She replied, ‘He did what one of you would do in his house. He mended sandals and patched garments and sewed.‘“ [Albani]
Please see these links:
https://seekersguidance.org/answers/general-counsel/extent-obey-mother/
https://seekersguidance.org/tag/honoring-parents/
Compromise
If you are getting tired easily with the chores, please sit down and talk to your mother about it politely. Tell her how much you are able to do and explain that sharing the work is best for your health and time. Try to convince her of this. Don’t argue with her or do hurtful things to her, this is contrary to the spirit of Islam and contravenes the rights of parents.
If there is a water shortage, it doesn’t mean that only one person can clean. Both can clean together or separately, each person just has to use less water or leave the bucket of water for the other person to use. I believe that a family that lives together must work together and help each other for the home to run smoothly. This is evident from the Prophetic example above.
Reduce your prayer
When you have both agreed on cleaning together, or even if you haven’t, I recommend that you reduce the time you spend in prayer until you find a balance between worship and work. Pray your obligatory prayer with its sunnahs, but don’t make any prayer too long. Your prayer should never be a reason to affect other facets of your life, unless in a positive way. Also, consider praying your sunnahs sitting down because it is not obligatory to stand for sunnah prayers. Rather it’s sunnah to stand for sunnah prayers.
As with any problem in life, ask Allah to help you fulfill your obligations to Him, in the best way and choose goodness over evil in every situation. You will find that, by His grace, your problems will get solved.
May Allah give you the best of this world and the next.
[Ustadha] Shazia Ahmad
Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani
Ustadha Shazia Ahmad lived in Damascus, Syria, for two years, where she studied aqidah, fiqh, tajweed, Tafseer, and Arabic. She then attended the University of Texas at Austin, where she completed her Master’s in Arabic. Afterward, she moved to Amman, Jordan, where she studied fiqh, Arabic, and other sciences. She recently moved back to Mississauga, Canada, where she lives with her family.