The Qur’aan Majeed says:
“O People of Imaan! Do not take as friends your fathers and your brothers if they love kufr over Imaan.”
In another aayat, the Qur’aan states:
“We have created you. Among you are kaafir and among you are Mu’min.”
According to Islam, there are only two divisions in mankind: Mu’mineen and kuffaar. Blood ties, family relationship, nationality and geographic divisions have no share in the categorization of mankind. If one’s relatives are kuffaar, there are no ties of brotherhood between the Muslim and his kuffaar relatives notwithstanding any worldly dealings and relationship with them. Brotherhood is confined to the Mu’mineen as the Qur’aan Majeed states:
“Verily the Mu’minoon are brothers.”
For the sake of Allah Ta’ala and His Deen, a Muslim has necessarily to become the enemy of his brothers, his parents, his wife and his children if they prefer kufr to Imaan. The aforementioned Qur’aanic aayat explicitly commands that the kuffaar should not be befriended even if they happen to be parents and relatives.
FRATERNIZING
Nowadays, on account of defective Imaan, many Muslims – those who have embraced Islam – maintain close family ties with their kuffaar relatives. They freely mingle and fratinize with them. They eat with them and they attend their functions and parties. They sit and wile away the time with them becoming involved in all the futility and morally destructive activities of their kuffaar relatives. Then they even attend the funerals of such relatives who had died as kuffaar. Without perceiving the creeping and contagious disease of kufr and immorality emanating from kuffaar relatives, the new Muslim finds himself slipping. Some leave the fold of Islam. Others lapse into all the haraam of the kuffaar.
KUFR PREFERENCE
When a Muslim inclines towards his kuffaar relatives, he betrays signs of his own kufr. If his Imaan is healthy, he will have an aversion for his kuffaar relatives, be they his parents although he will conduct himself with dignity and even assist them and display good mannerism towards them. But never can he have any love for kuffaar even if they are relatives if his Imaan has reached perfection.Kufr and Imaan cannot coexist. There is no common platform for these opposites.
When the son of Nabi Nooh (alayhis salaam) was struck down by a wave in the roaring flood, he (Nabi Nooh) supplicated to Allah Ta’ala: “O my Rabb! Verily he is of my family.”
Allah Ta’ala replied: “O Nooh! Verily, he is not of your family.”
Since his son was a kaafir, Allah Ta’ala refuted the idea that he was a member of Hadhrat Nooh’s family.
KUFR
Muslims who freely associate and fraternize with their kuffaar relatives should take lesson and not expose their Imaan to the kufr of kuffaar relatives. While it is permissible to be of service to them if they are not inimical and openly malicious towards Islam, and if they do not attempt to wean their Muslim relative away from Islam, it is not permissible to fraternize with them nor take them as bosom friends. Remember that according to Islam, a faasiq, evil and immoral Muslim is infinitely superior to an ostensibly good and virtuous non-Muslim. The dividing line is kufr. Kufr has been created for Jahannum.