The Fatherless Generation and the Inspiration of the Family of Imran
There is a growing unease within Indonesian families. It is not merely about whether a child has a father, but whether the father is truly present in the child’s life. Data from the 2025 Family Data Update cited by the Ministry of Population and Family Development/BKKBN indicates that Indonesia’s fatherless index has reached 25.8 percent. The term does not always mean a child has physically lost a father, but also encompasses conditions where the father’s role, attention, communication, affection, and involvement in parenting are not optimally present. This figure means the issue of fatherlessness is no longer just a conversation on social media. Based on the definition used by the Ministry, approximately one in four children lives in a family with suboptimal father involvement.
The government has responded to this situation through, among other initiatives, the Gerakan Ayah Teladan Indonesia (GATI), or the Indonesian Exemplary Father Movement. This national programme is directed at strengthening fathers’ involvement in parenting, education, and child protection, while also serving as a reminder that a father’s duty does not end when the family’s economic needs are met. The movement is being intensified until August 2026. In West Java, for example, the Ministry on 10 August continued to promote the Exemplary Father Class to strengthen father involvement from pregnancy and childbirth through to family parenting. In East Java, the scale is very large. The province has a GATI target of 569,018 people, and as of July 2026, 412,426 people are reported to have received education on the role of fathers.
Amid this unease, there is a verse from the Quran that is very interesting to reflect upon. When we are searching again for the meaning of family, the Quran brings us to a family whose name has endured across thousands of years. Not a family introduced because of its wealth. Nor a family remembered because of its political power. Its name is the family of Imran. So special is this family that its name became the name of the third surah in the Quran. Allah even mentions the family of Imran in one sequence with Adam, Noah, and the family of Ibrahim as humans and families chosen by Him.
Perhaps it is here that the conversation about fatherlessness gains a deeper dimension. The problem of the family turns out to be not only about who lives under the same roof, but about what values live within that house and what is passed down from one generation to the next. ‘Indeed, Allah chose Adam and Noah and the family of Abraham and the family of Imran over the worlds’ (QS Ali ’Imran [3]: 33).
One word in that verse feels very powerful. Istafa. Allah chose. Ibn Kathir explains that Allah informs that He chose the people and families mentioned in the verse over other humans. Adam received a special position; Noah was sent when polytheism had developed among mankind; then Allah mentions the family of Ibrahim and the family of Imran. Interestingly, when it comes to Ibrahim and Imran, the Quran does not only mention individuals. Allah says: ‘The family of Ibrahim and the family of Imran.’ It is here that the verse feels so close to the family issues of today. The Quran shows that goodness does not have to stop with one person, but can live, grow, and be continued within a family.
The following verse even says: ‘They are descendants, one from the other. And Allah is Hearing and Knowing’ (QS Ali ’Imran [3]: 34). There is continuity there. There is generation. There is something that is inherited. But what is inherited is not merely blood or family name. The sequence of verses that follows actually brings us to something far more subtle: prayer, devotion, education, and orientation towards Allah.