Is it permissible to postpone maintaining kinship ties with paternal uncles and maternal aunts if communicating with them by phone provokes the mother's anger and threatens to cause problems that affect the children and their studies, even if these problems are expected, whether the mother is aware of them or not?

Maintaining kinship ties is one of the most obligatory duties, and severing them is one of the most heinous evils. Obedience to one's mother is one of the most emphasized duties, but it is not permissible to obey her in severing kinship ties. The questioner should advise his mother gently and explain to her the virtue of maintaining ties and the danger of severing them. He should strive to remove the cause of the estrangement between her and the relatives. The questioner must connect with his paternal and maternal uncles and aunts by every possible means without his mother's knowledge or angering her, because "there is no obedience to a creature in disobedience to the Creator." Maintaining kinship ties has no specific time limit in Islamic law, but it is not permissible to delay it to the extent that it is considered abandonment or severance. The determination of this refers to custom.