He answered, “Yes: he reviles another man’s father, so the man reviles his father; he reviles another man’s mother, so the man reviles his mother.”

This is a warning lest a person become the cause of his own parents being cursed. He may go to someone and curse that person’s parents, whereupon the other responds in kind and curses his parents. That, however, does not make it lawful for the second man to curse the first man’s parents, for “no soul bears the burden of another.” Yet human nature inclines a person to repay others in the same manner: if he is insulted, he insults back.

Allah the Exalted says, “Do not insult those they invoke besides Allah, lest they insult Allah in hostility, without knowledge” (al-Anʿām 6:108). Because he became the direct cause of his parents being insulted, he bears the sin of that abuse.

The author next cites the hadith of al-Mughīrah ibn Shuʿbah (may Allah be pleased with him) in which the Prophet ﷺ said, “Allah has forbidden you to be undutiful to your mothers, to withhold and to demand, and to bury girls alive.”

The point relevant to this chapter is his words “to be undutiful to your mothers,” meaning to cut off the kindness and respect owed to them. “To bury girls alive” refers to interring them while they are still living, for in the pre-Islamic era people loathed daughters and claimed that keeping a girl brought disgrace upon a man.

So—may Allah protect us—they would bring the girl, dig a pit for her, and bury her alive. Allah Most High says, “And when the girl who had been buried alive is asked for what sin she was killed” (at-Takwīr 81:8-9). Allah therefore prohibited this, and it is undoubtedly among the gravest of the major sins. If killing a believer who is a stranger leads to eternal damnation in the Fire, as He says: “Whoever intentionally kills a believer—his recompense is Hell, wherein he will abide forever. Allah’s wrath is upon him, He has cursed him, and prepared for him a tremendous punishment” (an-Nisāʾ 4:93)—