—the father is no longer liable for their support. If the boy attains majority in sound health and only later becomes chronically incapacitated, his maintenance does not revert to his parents according to Mālik. The same ruling applies to a girl: should her husband die or divorce her after consummation, her father does not resume responsibility for her upkeep. ʿAbd al-Malik, however, maintained that if the boy reaches adulthood while insane or chronically ill, his father’s duty of maintenance is not removed merely by reason of puberty.

Support between parents and children is obligatory when the provider has sufficient means and lapses in times of hardship; it never becomes a debt recorded against the estate, nor may creditors count it when bankruptcy is declared. One is not obliged to maintain a grandfather or grandmother—whether paternal or maternal—nor a brother, sister, any other unmarriageable relative, nor grandchildren through sons or through daughters.

Maintenance is due to both parents, whether they are Muslim or non-Muslim, healthy or incapacitated, provided they are in need. The son also pays their zakat al-fiṭr on their behalf. He must support his father’s wife, whether she is his own mother or unrelated to him. In Mālik’s view he is not obliged to arrange a marriage for his father, though some of Mālik’s colleagues held it necessary if the father cannot manage without it. A son is under no duty to give his father money with which to undertake jihad or to perform ḥajj.

A mother, whether poor or wealthy, is never obliged to maintain her child, whether the father is present or absent. Likewise, a woman is not required to support anyone except her destitute parents or those whom her right hand possesses. Children, however, are bound to sustain their father and his wife if he becomes destitute and incapable of providing for them, provided his poverty befell him after the marriage was consummated.

The amount of maintenance is determined by necessity: what allows the dependent to live in terms of food, clothing, and all other indispensable expenses, and it is calculated in proportion to the provider’s means. There is no fixed upper or lower limit—an affluent person spends according to his capacity and a straitened one according to his. In every case the court rules for a moderate standard, never for the highest level of expenditure.