Fatwa No. 21
Question:
I am a twenty-seven-year-old young woman. I have fallen in love with a young man without ever confessing this to him, and I am unable to erase his image from my mind — to the point that I find myself reading erotic stories. Please advise me.
Answer:
Al-ḥamdu lillāhi rabb al-ʿālamīn. To proceed:
Natural, instinctive feelings that a person did not bring upon themselves through stealing forbidden glances or following one glance with another carry no blame — so long as they do not lead to what is forbidden, such that their beginnings draw one into further steps, and so on. Pure, instinctive feelings that were not generated through forbidden means carry no reproach for the one who experiences them; reproach begins only when those feelings lead to the neglect of an obligation or the commission of a forbidden act.
That said — there is nothing in this world, my dear daughter, that is worthy of seizing our feelings entirely and drowning us in its love after Allah and His Messenger. As the poet said:
Nothing of what we see retains its radiance — Allah endures, while wealth and children pass away.
Infatuation with outward forms to this degree, my dear daughter, is one of the gateways to servitude to other than Allah, and one of the manifestations of Iblīs’s deception (talbīs Iblīs) upon weak souls.
If there is a path by which you may be joined to this man in marriage, there is no objection to pursuing it. For although a woman is customarily the one proposed to and not the one who proposes, the one sought and not the one who seeks — there is nothing in the Sharīʿah that
prevents a woman from presenting herself to a righteous man and proposing marriage to him through intermediaries, just as the Mother of the Believers Khadījah (may Allah be pleased with her) sought the assistance of one who would help her in her marriage to the Prophet ( .(صلى الله عليه وسلم
If there is no path to that, then despair is one of the two forms of relief. Occupy yourself with the remembrance of Allah (dhikr) and the recitation of the Quran, avoid solitude, and seek out righteous companionship that will guide you toward good and support you in it. Beseech Allah — in Whose hands lie the reins of all hearts — to turn away from you what you are experiencing and to protect you from the trials that lead astray.
I must pause, however, at your words: “to the point that I read erotic stories.” What has a righteous young woman to do with reading such stories, or with entering that world in the first place?!
My dear daughter, keep far away from this world of temptation. Those are the snares and steps of Shayṭān — the traps he lays to hunt his victims from among the heedless. Guard yourself against him, O young woman of Islam; do not let him make light of you through his deceptions, nor deceive you through his devices.
O Allah, strengthen her heart, pour upon her patience and tranquility, contentment and peace of mind, and return her to You in a beautiful returning.
And Allah Most High knows best.
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Footnotes (Takhrīj):
(1) The verse cited is a line of classical Arabic poetry (ḥikam), not a Prophetic ḥadīth. It is cited by the Shaykh as a piece of wisdom (ḥikmah) consistent with Quranic teaching on the transience of worldly things.
