Enjoining Good and Forbidding Evil: Enjoining Good and Forbidding Evil Towards Family and Relatives

Practical Laws of Islam as per the teachings of Ayatullah Sistani

Ruling 1870

The obligation to enjoin good and forbid evil on every mukallaf is greater with respect to his family and relatives. Therefore, if with regard to his family and relatives he feels that they are inattentive to, and unconcerned about, religious obligations such as performing prayers (ṣalāh), keeping fasts (ṣawm), paying the one-fifth tax (khums), and suchlike, or if he sees that they are careless and fearless with regard to committing unlawful acts such as backbiting and lying, then he must prevent improper actions being performed by them and invite them to do good deeds with a greater sense of importance while observing the three levels of enjoining good and forbidding evil.

However, with regard to one’s mother and father, the obligatory precaution is that he must guide them by adopting a soft and gentle approach, and he must never be harsh with them.

-Ayatullah Sistani, Practical Laws of Islam, Enjoining Good and Forbidding Evil