Website: www.aaiil.uk

The Haram and Halal of behaviour and morals

Friday Khutba by Dr Zahid Aziz, for Lahore Ahmadiyya UK, 12 December 2025

“Say: Come! I will recite what your Lord has forbidden (made ḥarām) to you: Set up no partner with Him, and do good to parents, nor kill your children for (fear of) poverty — We provide for you and for them, nor go near to indecencies, open or secret, nor kill the soul which Allah has made sacred except in the course of justice. This He enjoins upon you that you may understand. And do not approach the property of the orphan except in the best manner, until he attains his maturity. And give full measure and weight with equity — We do not impose on any soul a duty beyond its ability. And when you speak, be just, even (against) a relative. And fulfil Allah’s covenant. This He enjoins on you that you may be mindful;” — ch. 6, Al-An‘ām, v. 151–152

قُلۡ تَعَالَوۡا اَتۡلُ مَا حَرَّمَ رَبُّکُمۡ عَلَیۡکُمۡ اَلَّا تُشۡرِکُوۡا بِہٖ شَیۡئًا وَّ بِالۡوَالِدَیۡنِ اِحۡسَانًا ۚ وَ لَا تَقۡتُلُوۡۤا اَوۡلَادَکُمۡ مِّنۡ اِمۡلَاقٍ ؕ نَحۡنُ نَرۡزُقُکُمۡ وَ اِیَّاہُمۡ ۚ وَ لَا تَقۡرَبُوا الۡفَوَاحِشَ مَا ظَہَرَ مِنۡہَا وَ مَا بَطَنَ ۚ وَ لَا تَقۡتُلُوا النَّفۡسَ الَّتِیۡ حَرَّمَ اللّٰہُ اِلَّا بِالۡحَقِّ ؕ ذٰلِکُمۡ وَصّٰکُمۡ بِہٖ لَعَلَّکُمۡ تَعۡقِلُوۡنَ ﴿۱۵۱﴾ وَ لَا تَقۡرَبُوۡا مَالَ الۡیَتِیۡمِ اِلَّا بِالَّتِیۡ ہِیَ اَحۡسَنُ حَتّٰی یَبۡلُغَ اَشُدَّہٗ ۚ وَ اَوۡفُوا الۡکَیۡلَ وَ الۡمِیۡزَانَ بِالۡقِسۡطِ ۚ لَا نُکَلِّفُ نَفۡسًا اِلَّا وُسۡعَہَا ۚ وَ اِذَا قُلۡتُمۡ فَاعۡدِلُوۡا وَ لَوۡ کَانَ ذَا قُرۡبٰی ۚ وَ بِعَہۡدِ اللّٰہِ اَوۡفُوۡا ؕ ذٰلِکُمۡ وَصّٰکُمۡ بِہٖ لَعَلَّکُمۡ تَذَکَّرُوۡنَ ﴿۱۵۲﴾ۙ

In an earlier khutba, I quoted a verse which occurs only a little earlier than these verses, telling the Holy Prophet Muhammad to say to people:

“I do not find in what is revealed to me anything forbidden for an eater to eat of, except if it is what dies of itself, or blood poured forth, or the flesh of swine — for that surely is unclean — or what is a transgression, other than the name of Allah having been invoked on it” (6:145).

This made it clear what it is that is forbidden or ḥarām for eating, and that in the Quran nothing is forbidden to eat except the specific items listed here. Then in the verses I have now recited we are told what is really forbidden in life. This removes the misunderstanding, which is in the minds of most Muslims, that forbidden or ḥarām relates principally to matters of eating and drinking.

The first thing mentioned as forbidden is for a person to consider something other than God as being a partner of God, or sharing some powers or attributes possessed only by God, what is called committing shirk. This is not only the actual worship of something else, alongside the one God, as also a god; for example, an idol or a historical personality, or a mythical, imaginary figure. Among Muslims no one actually worships something other than Allah in prayer. However, there are many who obey religious leaders, political leaders or the wealthy and the powerful in everything which they tell them to do. Many of them are very proud of their total submission to such leaders. In case of religious leaders, their followers believe that God will be pleased with them if they obey the leader, scholar or imam without question. In case of the worldly powerful ones, their followers believe that they need to obey them in order to be successful in the world, reach higher positions, or even just survive. All this is forbidden because it makes a person behave in practice as if he believes that these leaders possess some of the powers and qualities of God.

I may add here that in the history of religions there are many examples of religious leaders justifying the actions of the king of the country from the religion, when those actions were actually based on their own desires and policies. These religious leaders were either seeking favours from their king or they were actually paid servants of the state. Muslim kings had Ulama, or religious scholars in their pay, who would issue ruling or fatwas to justify their actions. This is how the legitimacy of having concubines or londis, slave women used for sexual purposes, was brought into Islamic law. Kings wanted to indulge in this practice for their own, low desires, so they called upon their employed Ulama to justify it from the teachings of Islam. Once a Sunni king wanted to attack the neighbouring Shiah kingdom, but he realised that a Muslim was not allowed to kill another Muslim. So he approached his Ulama and got them to declare Shiahs as unbelievers or kafirs, to make it allowable for him in Islam to attack that kingdom.

These are all examples of shirk, where you give the position of Allah to someone other than Allah. In the case of the ordinary followers of religious or political leaders, they out of ignorance actually believe that their leaders are representatives of God on earth. And in the case of the Ulama obeying the commands of their rulers to seek their favour or out of fear, they know full well that they are treating unworthy worldly rulers as if they were God. I should also add that in the history of Islam there have been many reputable and upstanding religious scholars who refused any kind of employment of the government, or any payment from the rulers, because they feared that this would compromise their independence of judgment.

The next teaching listed in these verses, which if you neglect then it is an act of ḥarām, is “do good to parents”. A similar teaching is also in the Ten Commandments of the Bible, and occurs in the same sequence. The first four of the Ten Commandments relate to worshipping only the one God, and not worshipping anything other than God, respecting His name, and observing the sanctity of the day of the week that God declared as sacred. The fifth one is:

“Honour your father and your mother” (Deuteronomy 5:16).

The father and the mother bring a person physically into this world, and from their very nature they feel it their loving duty to bring that child up to adulthood physically. If they are responsible parents, they give their offspring moral guidance as well. It is as if they represent the work of God on earth and act as His agents. But not all parents give good moral guidance. So Allah has made the Holy Prophet Muhammad as the spiritual father of all Muslims, and his wives as their spiritual mothers, from whom they can received guidance till today.

Then we have this teaching:

“nor kill your children for (fear of) poverty — We provide for you and for them.”

After mentioning the duty of the offspring towards parents, immediately the right of the child to his or her life is mentioned. There are two points to note about this command. At that time in Arabia, the only children who were killed by their parents were baby girls and not boys, but this verse refers to all children, male or female. Moreover, any such incident of the killing of a baby daughter was not because of fear of poverty but because of feeling of shame and dishonour in society. This cruel custom of Arabia of the time is mentioned in the Quran in more than one place. It says in one place:

“And when the birth of a daughter is announced to one of them, his face becomes dark and he is full of displeasure. He hides himself from the people because of the evil of what is announced to him. Shall he keep it with disgrace or bury it (alive) in the dust? Now surely evil is what they judge!” (16:58–59)

So killing children, both male and female, and doing so for fear of poverty did not fully apply in the society in which the Quran was revealed. But the Quran is for all circumstances and all times. There are cultures in the world in which parents regarded, and still regard, the birth of a daughter as a financial loss and disadvantage in the future. She costs them money at her marriage and joins another family, while a son remains with them and helps to increase their income and wealth. They might not kill their daughters in infancy, but in modern times, with developments in science, many such-minded parents try to prevent births of daughters by aborting the birth if a scan should show that the child to be born is female.

Another example in this modern age is government policy in China, where the population was growing too rapidly, and this was feared to greatly impoverish the country in a few years’ time. The government introduced a one-child policy around the year 1980 which forced married couples to have no more than one child. This was rigorously enforced by the government by forced abortions and sterilization, and fines and loss of benefits for having more than one child. However, this policy had to be relaxed from 2013 onwards due to its damaging effects. According to a social and economic research institution, Brookings of USA, from the year 2000 “the harmful consequences of continuing the ill-conceived one-child policy” could be seen. There was a shrinking younger generation and reduced workforce as compared to the older generation. Their research says:

“China’s one-child policy will be remembered as one of the costliest lessons of misguided public policymaking. … the harm caused by the policy is long-term and irreparable.” (Link)

This article, written in 2016, reported that this policy was changed to a two-child policy in 2015. Later on, in 2021, this was changed to a three-child policy. It has also been discovered that some other countries in Asia managed to control their rapid population growth by encouraging the education and empowerment of women, not by forced birth controls.

Some scholars of the Quran of several centuries ago wrote that by “killing your children” in this verse is meant depriving them of education and knowledge. Maulana Muhammad Ali, in his English translation of the Quran, writes under another verse (17:31) where the same prohibition is repeated:

“Infanticide (child-killing), in the case of daughters, was met with among the Arabs, but this was not for fear of poverty. According to Rāghīb, killing of children here means not giving them proper education; ignorance, or intellectual death, being treated as death. The word aulād (children) includes both males and females, and this explanation is therefore more reasonable.”

He writes in his Urdu commentary of the Quran, under the verse that I recited at the beginning of this khutba, that many people do not send their children for education only for the reason that they are poor and cannot afford it or for the fear that they will become poor by spending on their children’s education. In this verse, after mentioning the rights which are due to parents from their offspring, the rights due to the offspring from their parents are mentioned as being that they must be given good education. After quoting Maulana Muhammad Ali, I may add that modern Western governments realised the need to remove the obstacle of poverty of the family from standing in the way of children’s education, and therefore they introduced free, universal education up to a certain age. In that sense, they acted on the teaching “nor kill your children for (fear of) poverty”.

After this point the verses I recited at the beginning, as you can see, go on to list several other fundamental qualities that Muslims must display in their behaviour towards others. These we will cover in later khutbas, and we here end with the prayer that Allah enables us to live up to these standards of behaviour — Ameen.

Website: www.aaiil.uk