What is the religious ruling on a son treating his father in kind, with harshness and withholding money? Is the father held accountable for his upbringing that led to this? And how does a son learn good qualities if he did not learn them from his father?

It is not permissible for a son to treat his father badly; rather, he must treat him kindly, dutifully, and with good companionship, even if the father acts poorly. The father's right over his son is immense, and it is obligatory for a wealthy son to provide for his poor father, without obligating the father to repay the money.

To acquire virtuous morals and treat one's father with forgiveness and leniency, the following are recommended: 1. Supplication and Humbling oneself to Allah: To seek guidance for the best of morals and to avert bad ones. 2. Understanding the status of parents: And realizing the greatness of their rights and the virtue of honoring them, and that honoring them is one of the gates to Paradise. 3. Striving against the self: And compelling it to acquire good morals until it becomes accustomed to them.

A father's negligence in fulfilling his children's rights and raising them makes him accountable before Allah, for children are a trust. However, the parents' shortcomings do not justify the child responding with bad treatment.