Answer
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.
In this fatwa:
What you have committed is a grave sin that requires sincere repentance and immediate and constant resolve to stay away from such a sin or even anything that approaches it. Resolve firmly in your mind to never again do such sins. You should follow any bad deed up with good deeds as best as you can.
In responding to your question, Sheikh Ahmad Kutty, a senior lecturer and an Islamic scholar at the Islamic Institute of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, states:
You have indeed committed a most heinous sin. The worst thing you could ever do is to look at this grave sin lightly. You must, therefore, always be conscious of the enormity of the sin you have committed and cry over your depraved condition and do expiatory works to wipe it out as long as you live.
Conditions of Repentance in Islam
A sincere repentance is not complete unless you take serious steps and stick with them as long as you live. Here are the steps that are considered as absolute prerequisites for repentance:
- Feel always deep and unceasing remorse for the enormity of sins you have committed and never allow Satan to make you look at them lightly.
- Immediately stay away from everything that led you to commit such a heinous act such as watching porn, or being alone with her or any other member of the opposite sex. Also avoid all talks, readings, and company that either encourage or entice you to commit such acts.
- Resolve firmly in your mind to never again do such sins. As part of your repentance you should stay away from your sister. Furthermore, you should also be moving around with people who are spiritually and morally higher than you and exemplary in their practice of Islam and Islamic morals.
- You should follow it up with good deeds as best as you can. To list a few of them: Be constant in reading the Quran, make lots of istighfar (asking forgiveness of Allah), develop the habit of making constant dhikr, visit hospitals, think of death, attend those who are in the throes of death, visit graves, and visualize that one day that will be your final resting place, too.
I advise you also to get the following work by Imam Al-Ghazali and read and reflect upon it continually:
Al-Ghazali On Disciplining the Soul and Breaking the Two Desires: The Revival of the Religious Sciences (Ihya Ulum Al-Din) Bk. 22 & 23 (Islamic Texts Al-Ghazali S.)
Offering Duaa
Furthermore, you may also use the following supplications consistently in order to ask Allah to purge your heart of all pernicious thoughts and inclinations:
Allaahumma tahhir qalbi wa ahsin farji.
O Allah, cleanse and purify my heart of all sins, and help me to remain chaste and pure.
Rabbi qini sharra sam`i; rabbi qini sharra basari; rabbi qini sharra lisaani; rabbi qini sharra maniyy.
My Lord, protect me against the evils of my ears; my Lord, protect me against the evils of my eyes; my Lord, protect me against the evils of my tongue; my Lord, protect me against the evils of my sperm (i.e., private parts).
Allaahumma habbib ilayya al-imana wa zayyinhu fi qalbi wa karrih ilayya al-kufra wa al-fusuqa wa al-isyaan.
O Allah, make faith dear to my heart, and embellish my heart with faith, and make me abhor and detest disbelief, transgression and sins of all sorts.
Allah Almighty knows best.
Editor’s note: This fatwa is from Ask the Scholar’s archive and was originally published at an earlier date.