Fatwa ID: 03318

Answered by:  Maulana Javed ibn Nazir Kachhalia​

Question

 A friend of mine fell into fitna and was speaking to many non-mahram women over the Internet. Many of them did not know in person.

He pretended to be someone else by sharing a picture of a celebrity. He offered to buy them very expensive goods if they took certain pictures for them. After doing so, he would then block them, and not talk to them again. Alhamdulillah, through the efforts of Tabligh, he's stopped his bad habits and is constantly engaged in taubah, andistigfarh. He's also given sadaah, but the following questions haunt him:

1) Is he required to confess to the celebrity for using his pictures?

2) Is he duty-bound to contact all these girls again confessing he deceived them, and apologise? He fears, if he does, he'll fall in fitna again.

3) Is he required to buy them those good, that he falsely promised?

بِسْمِ اللهِ الرَّحْمنِ الرَّحِيْم

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

Answer

In regards to the scenario mentioned above; this doesn’t fall under the criteria of Huqooqul Ibad. But, what he has done, it’s a grave sin and Allah SWT will hold him accountable for this unless he makes Tawbah and repents for the wrong.

We are all humans, and we make mistakes and succumbed to temptations. But, once we have made tawbah we shouldn’t be disclosing our mistakes or sins and not even trying to go back there. Shaytaan will want us to fall again into those evil acts. (May Allah protect us, Ameen)

He doesn’t need to do any of the above.

There is a Hadith:

Abu Hurairah RA reported: Messenger of Allah (sallallaahu ’alayhi wa sallam) said, “Every one of my followers will be forgiven except those who expose (openly) their wrongdoings. An example of this is that of a man who commits a sin at night which Allah has covered for him, and in the morning, he would say (to people): “I committed such and such sin last night,’ while Allah had kept it a secret. During the night Allah has covered it up but in the morning he tears up the cover provided by Allah Himself.”(Bukhari and Muslim)

From the above Hadith, we understand that we should try to avoid going back or exposing ourselves to others about our sins.

Furthermore, when a person does tawbah, Allah purifies him. There is a Hadith:

It was narrated from Abu ‘Ubadah bin ‘Abdullah, that his father said:

“The Messenger of Allah (ﷺ) said: ‘The one who repents from sin is like one who did not sin.’”(Ibn Majah)

Only Allah knows best.

Written by Maulana Javed ibn Nazir Kachhalia

Checked and approved by Mufti Mohammed Tosir Miah

Darul Ifta Birmingham