Lying to father about accessing the internet

27-10-2014 | IslamWeb

Question:

Aslamaualakaum Please can you reply back as soon as possible as it is important. Here is the story, my dad thinks me and my brothers wath haram stuff on the internet, so he blocked out internet, but i dont wath anything haram i use it for islmic talks and news, i found a way to unlbock it seacetly and my dad doesnt know. I dont feal to bad about it becuse i dont use it for haram acitivy only halal and it has with the premssion of Allah helped me to gain a lot of knowledge from utube and also get my questioned asnwered from sites like yours. The problem is this, my dad is kind of figuaring out that it can be unblocked, he doesnt know yet but he is getting suscipous, if he finds out i will be in huge huge huge trouble, whats worse is my dad is on stress tablets, and it will make his stress level go very high and he will start needing more tablets and start fealing sick. So he keeps asking me about and i keep lying, i dont want to lie and i feal remorse, but i cant ask for forigvness becuse it is not sincere as meating the thrid conditon (as menttioned on islamqa) is that you have to promise that you will stop, but i cant becuse if i do my dad will be very upset and he will get stressed and sick, and i will be in huge trouble and he will loose trust in me. My question is as follows 1) Is it allowed for me to lie in this sitatuion 2) if not, what do you suggest that i do in terms of repentacne becuse i know that i wont be able to stop, any advise on how i can stop 3) What do you suggest i do about the whole sitation, if i tell my dad that i watch islamic talks and not haram movies etc, he wont trust me and will still want it blocked. If it is blocked i will be cut off from one of the main areas i have to islamic knowledge and refuting this doubts and ideas in my head, i dont have any schollars that i know in my area that can speak enlgish well.

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Answer:

All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad, sallallaahu ‘alayhi wa sallam, is His slave and Messenger.

There is no doubt that parents hold a distinguished and high status in Islam. This is why the duty of children toward them are mentioned next to duty of Allaah’s servants toward Him in the Quran. The Muslim is commanded to be dutiful and kind to his parents. Allaah, The Exalted, says (what means): {And your Lord has decreed that you not worship except Him, and to parents, good treatment. Whether one or both of them reach old age [while] with you, say not to them [so much as], "uff," and do not repel them but speak to them a noble word.} [Quran 17:23]

An aspect of one's dutifulness towards his parents is obeying them in whatever is permissible and good. So, you should try to obey your father to the best of your ability as long as what he commands you to do is permissible and good; and as a reward for your dutifulness, Allaah will raise your status in this worldly life and the Hereafter.

However, sometimes parents make it rather difficult for their children by commanding them to do what is not in their best interest or what constitutes hardship for them. This is why Muslim scholars held that the obligation of obedience to one's parents is not unlimited; rather it is limited to what is in the interest of the parents and does not cause harm or hardship to the children. We have mentioned the statements of scholars in this regard in Fatwa 131695.

Hence, if not having access to the internet prevents you from acquiring religious knowledge and your father has no sound purpose for denying your access to the internet, then there is no harm in accessing the internet without his knowledge in order to avail yourself of such religious knowledge. However, you should beware of being lured by Satan into watching forbidden websites. You should have recourse to evasive language, using words by which you mean something but you know the listener understands something else, as a way to avoid lying. If you have no other way but to lie to your father in order to avoid his anger and ward off harm (incurred on him), then there is no harm in that. Please refer to Fataawa 88412 and 84728.

This is of course if the internet service is owned by you and your father denies you access to it. However, if the internet service is your father’s, then it is impermissible for you to access it after he restricted access to it. That is because the money of a Muslim is not lawful to another except by his willing consent; and internet expenses are not included in the obligatory financial maintenance of children, which is permissible for them to take from the father’s money without his knowledge  if he denies their access to it.

Allaah Knows best.