Praise be to Allaah.

First:

We will be frank with you just as you were frank with us; have you written to us for permission to fornicate?! We do not have the power to grant anyone permission to sin against Allah; and do you want us to issue a verdict making that major immorality permissible?! No Muslim can do that; fornication/adultery is one of the major sins for which Allah has prescribed punishment by lashing or stoning to death. There are also other rulings such as one not being allowed to marry a fornicator until he repents and the perpetrator of such a sin has been threatened with a severe punishment in the hereafter. The Prophet (may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) informed us of some of the punishments; Allah gathers the fornicators/adulterers in Hell in a naked state and the flames of the fire reach them and the great cries of their voices are heard. So we possess no authority to grant permission for such an immorality nor can we issue a verdict which would allow such an immorality.

Second:

We promised to be frank with you as you were with us; so let’s assume that the one who reached this stage of desperation and hardship was your sister or your mother – may Allah forbid – and she wished to do as you do, what would your position be toward such a wish and request? We know your response and aren’t waiting for it – we are simply bringing your attention to the repulsiveness of what you are requesting.

Leave it and look at something else; there may be many youth out there with the same desire to fornicate and they might be respectable like yourself, and they are desperate and can’t stand it any longer and the woman they wish to fornicate with happens to be your sister or your mother (may Allah forbid); so what do you say to that? We know your response to this as well and are not waiting for it. So know that if we were to permit this immorality for you, we would have to permit the very same for your sister or mother and if we were to permit this immorality for you, we would also have to permit others to do it with your sister or mother and there is no way this pure Sharee’ah (religious law) would allow such a thing. The honour of your sister and mother is preserved by the sharee’ah and protected by the Divine rulings. Whoever transgresses them will face the evil consequences and punishment in this world and the next. Do you see how this pure sharee’ah came to preserve and protect your family’s honour? So how do you expect us to desecrate the honour of women and say to you: “do it and there’s no objection”?

This example we have given you was given by the best and most honourable of people and the one who was most knowledgeable of his Lord, the Exalted; he was the Prophet (may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him). He said it to a youth who came to him requesting permission to fornicate; he said to him “Are you pleased with it for your mother? Are you pleased with it for your sister?” We hope you understand that we only wanted to make you aware of the ugliness and repulsiveness of what you have asked and desired. The honour of people is not left open for people to desecrate according to their desires, rather it is preserved by the pure sharee’ah. The previously mentioned hadeeth (prophetic narration) along with valuable commentary on it was mentioned in its entirety in the answer to question 52467.

Third:

Dear questioner, do you think that by committing the immoral act of fornication – may Allah protect you from it and purify you of ever falling into it – you will have satisfied your desire and be at ease? If you think so then you have made a grave error; rather doing that ugly, immoral act of fornication is the beginning of bitter consequences in this world and the next. Zina (fornication/adultery) combines the foundations of evil; lack of religiousness, loss of scrupulousness, corruption of chivalry, lack of self-respect, betrayal, lack of shame, lack of self-censorship and no disdain for the unlawful. From the evil effects is: the anger of the Lord, blackness and darkness of the face, darkness of the heart and extinguishing of its light, tightening of the breast and its constriction and much more. We have mentioned the many consequences in the answer to question number 20983 so please refer to it.

Fourth:

Dear questioner, let us ask you, why do you pray and fast? We have a good opinion of you so we figure you will say it’s because Allah ordered you to do so and prohibited you from leaving it. Similarly we say to you that Allah, the Exalted, has made it an obligation for you to protect your private part and forbade for you zina. We don’t doubt for a moment that you believe Allah is watching you as you pray and so you focus during it and are calm and try to pray as your Prophet (may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) taught you. Similarly, Allah, the Exalted, would be watching over you if you were to engage in that immorality! If your belief that Allah sees you drives you to perfect your prayer, then we believe that same belief will drive you to abstain from committing the immoral act of zina because we think well of you. And we think you know this is not the way to thank your Lord, the Exalted, for having bestowed upon you the favour of Islam and for having granted you good health and well-being; this is not the way you show gratitude for such great favours.

Fifth:

Dear questioner, you failed to realize that if you were to be patient and anticipate reward from Allah in the face of this desperation and difficulty you would be rewarded by Allah. This is the way believers react in the face of difficulty and when good comes their way they are grateful to their Lord, Mighty and Exalted. Only the believer behaves in this way; he is patient in times of difficulty and grateful when good comes to him. You will find the effects of all this – Allah willing – in terms of full rewards on your scale the day you meet your Lord, the Exalted, when you will be most in need of even one good deed. See the answer to question number 71236 for in it you will find an explanation of how the believer reacts to trials.

Sixth:

You also seem to fail to realize that whatever supplications you made were not in vain and you are wrong in your claim that they were not responded to; there are three possibilities in response to one’s supplication: Allah may grant you exactly what you request immediately, or He may avert an evil/harm from you similar to what you requested or He may delay that for you in the form of rewards you will find when you meet Him. But you thought that realizing your supplication was only in having your desire fulfilled and so you claimed that Allah did not answer your prayers, which is undoubtedly a clear error. As long as one is supplicating to his Lord, he is engaging in a great act of worship wherein he shows his need for and humility before his Creator. One of the most common methods employed by the shaytan to prevent a slave from du’a (supplication) is to make him want immediate results and so he becomes impatient and leaves du’a.

Ibn Battal (may Allah have mercy on him) said: “Some said: A slave only expects immediate results if his intention behind the du’a is to attain what he is asking for. So if he does not get what he wants, du’a becomes burdensome for him. A person’s intention when making du’a should be: supplication to Allah, asking of Him, always feeling in need of Him, never parting from being subservient, feeling the essence of servitude and being obedient.” End quote

For the conditions of the answered du’a see the answer to question number 13506. Also see the answer to question number 5113 for those things which are barriers to having du’a accepted. For some of the etiquettes of du’a see the answer to question number 36902. And see the answer to question 22438 for places and times when du’a is accepted.

Seventh:

After all this, it is as though we hear you saying: “I do not want to commit zina.” And that is what we expect of you as in reality you did not write us to get permission to commit an act of immorality because you know with certainty that we do not have that authority. If you really wanted to do it, you have done so without writing us because we are not watchers over you and you are not under our rule that you need to take our permission if you indeed wanted to do this. We are certain that you just wanted to complain to your brothers about some of what you are going through and you wanted them to offer some advice and guidance and admonishment so you would not commit an immoral act. And here we are standing by you, encouraging you to be patient in the face of the trial Allah has sent your way in terms of delay in marriage. And we congratulate you for safeguarding your religion all these years. We also believe that you are capable of safeguarding it for longer than that if you seek the help of your Lord, Exalted and Mighty.

We advise you not to give up hope in the Mercy of Allah, the Exalted, and to exert an even greater effort in searching for a righteous wife and to have a stronger connection with your Lord through acts of obedience and righteous deeds.

We ask Allah to make faith dear to you and beautify it in your heart and to make disbelief, corruption and sin hated to you and to place you among the rightly guided.

Kindly refer to the answers to questions number 20161 and 11472.

And Allah is the Granter of Success.