Absolute Justice, Kindness and Kinship — Page 382
The Teaching of Justice and Kindness Regarding Relatives 373 collar and said 'Go, you and whatever belongs to you, is that of your father. ' Being unaware of this teaching the advanced societies are filled with such sorrows that you cannot imagine its true extent. If you read such literature as mentions the consequences of the neglect by children of their old parents, you will be pained to learn that some parents when they grow old are sent to old people’s homes. Often it happens they are not visited by their children except once in a blue moon. Some of them are so tired of loneliness that they prefer to commit suicide. Some become mad and no one inquires after them. Occasionally, when some elderly parents are visited by their children, they consider it as an extreme act of kindness and favour and begin to sing their praises. All are not alike in the West. There are also many who give full respect to their parents and pay them their dues. But those who do not, exceed them by a large margin and are responsible for the ill fame that the West has earned in this respect. Now this social disease has become so wide-spread that experts in England are forecasting that early in the next century the number of homeless old people will increase to the tune of eleven million. Somehow they will drag on to their death with their misery and agony. The Quran preempts this social disaster by admonishing: