Only a few years back there lived a happy family comprising two parents belonging to noble families and their two sons and two daughters brought up by their toiling affectionate parents against all thick and thin. The head of the family, their father, was allotted a small plot of land at a cost of Rs 5000/- only in a housing colony and a few rooms were built therein. It appears that nature had in store miseries for the noble family. With the meagre income of their father, the two daughters were married into two respectable families. Among the two sons, the eldest fell victim to the recent turmoil in the prime of his youth.
After somewhat reconciling with the situation, the second son was married to a most obedient, house-keeping girl of their relatives. Being very young, she sacrificed all her desires to serve the family, bearing patiently the harsh treatment of in-laws. Nature bestowed her with two daughters and one son who was crippled from the very birth. He was deaf, dumb, and immobile. This boy was looked after continuously by his mother for about 12 years, taking care of his food, cleanliness, clothing, medicine, and treatment, etc. It was a herculean task for his mother to carry the heavy boy on her shoulders to escape the 2014 floods, when their house got submerged and they lost all their belongings. The boy could not recover from his syndrome and died ultimately.
The patient mother also looked after the education of her two daughters in absence of her father-in-law, who passed away soon after the sudden accidental death of her husband – the only earning hand of the family.
The only source of income left with them was a meagre amount of rent from a shop allotted to her husband. Besides all these calamities, the miseries of the family were added to by the persistent demand of inheritance by the two sisters of her dead husband, a demand supported by their mother, who too was looked after by her patient daughter-in-law when she was ailing for a long period. The two sisters of the husband, backed by their husbands, raised their claim of inheritance more vociferously after the death of their mother, so much so, they wanted to evict the two orphan daughters along with their mother and bring them on the roadside, although both claimant sisters were well settled with their respective husbands.
Some sane elder relatives tried to intervene and request the two claimant sisters not to press their demands keeping in view the miserable condition of the orphans, but it was to no avail. It is a matter of wonder that the blood relations behave so cruelly with their own kith and kin in matters of claim of their property, even with orphans, though there are clear directives in Holy Quran and Hadith to be kind and considerate to orphans, and yet the so-called Muslims behave in a brutal manner which is highly condemnable.
So, ultimately, the two orphan girls were compelled to sell their only source of income, the shop belonging to their dead father, besides all the ornaments of their mother, and pay compensation of several lakh rupees to the two cruel sisters of their father who are still unsatisfied and who must realise that we must leave all our wealth here and go empty-handed upon our death.
May Allah guide them on the right path. Aameen.

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Ashraf Fazili