Fatwa ID: 02689

Answered by: Maulana Tahsin Alam

Question:

Assalamualaikum

 
I used to practice on sunnah, I was my ustaazs favourite in school and madressah. Was a top 90% student. I am a Hafiz of quran and i grow the sunnah beard. However, my online sin was watching porn and because I never masturbated to it I need worse porn to watch so it progressed watching incest porn(mother and son).

I would watch like in the holidays then I would stop for months then next holiday, then I’ll stop. However, I never ever used to have bad thoughts regarding my mother and I can only remember 3 incidents when i had bad thoughts regarding my mother.

Once I wasn't baligh, once I walked away and the other was because i think something my friends told me but there’s no guarantee that I caused hurmat. After i found out about hurmat musaharai never ever watched incest again.

However I think about it every single day, when I'm near my mother I get terrible thoughts. I run to the bathroom about 20 times a day to check if I have an erection.

After about 8 months when I asked a mufti to clear up and confirm I never caused hurmat I started imagining incidents that never happened before(I developed an ocd due to my extreme fear of causing hurmat).

I'll ask my mother and she'll say that never happened. Some nights I can't sleep, some nights i have nightmares, some days i feel like committing suicide because the 'fake memories feel so so real'.

So i stopped watching porn completely for a year but I would watch movies to clear my mind but still to ill still get bad thoughts and imaginations. I was a 90 student always top of my class and now I'm barely passing. Im stressed and depressed and sometimes feel suicidal but I know its a huge sin.

I try to follow the sunnah as much as possible but I can't do any ibadah because im always scared that Allah is upset with me. I'm just so so scared that I caused hurmat.

A very senior mufti told me that I must never worry about it again and I must write in my pocket that he told me there’s nothing to worry. I used to love the deen,was never ever depressed before this and was so happy. Now wallah I just wish to kill myself. I honestly hate the hanafi mazhab now for what I'm going through.

I cry to Allah. I don't understand how harsh it is. I used to be a good boy, everyone thought I was pious, I never even found my mother attractive.

I would ask muftis advice but they will give me the same shaytaan is troubling you because they don’t understand mental health and psychiatrists can’t help me since they have no knowledge of fiqh.

I was relatively okay this last month ever since I met the mufti, however ,I1) If one

read something that's really worrying me. Obviously I can never break up my parent’s marriage and obviously, I have never ever had sex with my mother. I would really like to know: causes of hurmat with his mother by touching or Kissing, does he become an illegitimate child as well as his siblings automatically or does this only take place after one's father divorces his mother(since the nikaah is still intact) or do the children become illegitimate only if sex takes place.

بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمنِ الرَّحِيْم

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful.

Answer:

We ask Allah SWT to make easy the troubling times you are facing. There is no harm in seeking professional support/counselling for mental health issues, preferably the practitioner should be a Muslim, but if not; you should explain the fundamentals principles of Islam and take advice accordingly.

In these times of fitna and fasad, it is normal for one to be troubled and experience these sorts of difficulties, so you do not have to feel depressed about these things that you are facing. Your main focus should be curing this addiction and seeking forgiveness from Allah SWT constantly. Nabi SAW is reported to have said, “The one who has [sincerely] sought forgiveness is not considered to be a persistent sinner (of that specific sin), even though he may repeat it 70 times in a day.”[1]

This hadith is in reference to the ayah “And those who, when they commit an immorality or wrong themselves [by transgression], remember Allah and seek forgiveness for their sins – and who can forgive sins except Allah? – And [who] do not persist in what they have done while they know.”[2]

What is the reward of such people? Who tirelessly exerted themselves in trying to uphold the commandants of Allah ta’ala while no one watches them; Almighty Allah says in the next verse, “Those – their reward is forgiveness from their Lord and gardens beneath which rivers flow [in Paradise], wherein they will abide eternally; and excellent is the reward of the [righteous] workers.”[3]

Regardin your question, having unlawful thoughts about your mother will not establish hurmat.

And Allah SWT alone knows best.

Written by Maulana Tahsin Alam

Checked and approved Mufti Mohammed Tosir Miah

Darul Ifta Birmingham