Wa ’Alaikum Salaam wa Rahmatullahi Wa Barakatuhu,

Alhamdulillah, I am glad that I was able to help before and I hope I can help again, by the will and guidance of Allah (swt).

It is not a sin to feel. What we feel is not within our control. Sin is reacting to a feeling in an inappropriate way, not according to Allah’s laws, for example, cuss, hit someone out of anger, say something hurtful to get back at someone. However, there is a feeling that happens between the feeling which was the impetus for our behavior (the desire) and our actual behavior. This feeling usually goes unnoticed in terms of our consciousness of the “system of feelings” that is going on inside us, in our minds and hearts, before we do a behavior in reaction to our feelings. For instance, if someone mistreats us, we feel the pain of their mistreatment first because that is the feeling that gets a reaction out of us that something is wrong. Then, we react to that feeling with another feeling, e.g., anger, fear, frustration. It takes work to sort out the difference between what we feel initially and what we feel in response to that feeling. We have to learn what the relationship is between our feelings and our internal reactions to them (before a behavior) to be able to identify which is which. When we can, we gain access to the ability to “decide” how we want to react, what action/behavior we want to take in response to our feelings, which were a combo or an initial feeling (e.g., the pain of a mistreatment) and our feelings about that feeling.

When we are conscious of how this system works, we can gain the insight we need, by Allah’s (swt) guidance, to understand how to turn off our desire to do a bad behavior before we do it. That desire is usually Shaitan corrupting our thinking with his evil suggestions of how to act.

So, what could be a sin is how we respond to our feelings, not our feelings themselves. From what I can tell, you did nothing wrong; to feel love is not a sin. To feel desire in response to that love is not a sin. You did not do an unlawful behavior (zina) in response to your feelings, so you did nothing wrong. So, please stop “beating yourself up”, so to speak, for feeling love, and even desire, for someone.

No, I would not recommend that you go to the wedding! You can make an excuse that is not a lie but is not telling the whole reason why you do not want to go. You can say that you don’t feel well. People will assume that you mean you don’t feel physically well, but you can mean that you don’t feel mentally well and you won’t be lying. Their assumptions about what well means is not your fault.

As far as your worries about her happiness go, I think I can safely say that her happiness is now beyond your realm of rights in relationship to her. You have to let her go, completely. Her happiness, or lack of it, is not something that you can do anything about at this point. I think you know that you need to leave her in Allah’s (swt) care now.

The same applies to your continued feelings for her. You have got to let go of her, in Sha’Allah. As I said, you cannot control what you feel, but you can control what you do about your feelings. Rather than just pining over her, perhaps finding another area of life that you love to think about would take your mind off of her. Or, try to find another sister who you think would be good for you on your path to Jennah, In Sha’Allah.

May Allah (swt) make it easy for you.