Answer
Wa `alaykum As-Salamu wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuh.
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:
A Muslim should spare no efforts to please Allah Almighty and draw himself closer to Him. As a new Muslim, you are best advised to encircle yourself with good Muslim friends who could help you become a good practicing Muslim. You could get rid of all bad habits by means of patience, resolve, and engagement in good work, and professional counselling when necessary.
In his response to your question, Sheikh Ahmad Kutty, a senior lecturer and Islamic scholar at the Islamic Institute of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, states:
Since you have been addicted to an extremely pernicious habit that destroys your spiritual soul and thus leads to self-destruction, you must urgently summon your will power and take all the necessary steps in order to wean yourself of it immediately.
In order to empower yourself to achieve this, you should seek counseling and therapy, preferably from those professionals in the field who are conscientious Muslims.
If such Muslim professionals are not available, choose one from those who are ethically and morally conscious. It is important for you to wean yourself of these pernicious habits.
The consequences of persisting in them are simply unthinkable; they would undoubtedly corrode your spiritual soul and cause your spiritual death.
Sins by their very nature are addictive, for it is in the very nature of the carnal self to seek pleasure in sins.
As Al-Busiri has rightly said,
“The carnal self is a like a baby; if you neglect him, he will grow up clinging on to the breast-milk forever, but if you wean him off, he will be weaned off.”
I suggest a few tips which you can use to empower yourself:
1- Visualize and meditate on the ugliness of this heinous sin and conjure up images of hell fire as painted in the Qur’an and the Sunnah as many times as possible until such time that whenever you are tempted to visit such websites or read such magazines, the scenes of hell fire will be playing in your mind.
Thus, even as you have associated this addiction with pleasure, you will come to associate it with pure pain and suffering.
2- Convince yourself of the urgency of removing this malignant cancer from your life by taking all measures such as listing all the negative things about such habits, and listing the verses and traditions about the gravity of sins. Remember it is far more serious than cancer attacking your body, since your soul survives you even after your physical body has disintegrated in the earth.
3- Imagine how terrible a loss you will be facing were you to die while being addicted to this most heinous sin.
4- Seek strength from Allah by crying to Him for succor. But you can never seek the help of Allah unless you seek to establish connection with Him through regular Prayers, so never be slack in your Prayers.
5- Schedule your time in such a way that you are never left with any time to think of such matters.
Imam Ash-Shafi`i said,
“If you don’t occupy your mind with good works, your carnal self will make you busy in bad deeds!”
6- Surround yourself with spiritual and Islamic influences and virtually immerse yourself in them.
7- Always hang around with good Muslims who are busy doing good works; join a halaqah(study circle) where spiritual training is imparted together with the study of Islam.
8- Make your mind and tongue busy with dhikr (remembrance of Allah). Say the following words and others frequently:
Subhan Allah; al-hamdu lillah; laa ilaha illa Allah; Allahu akbar;
Wa laa hawla wala quwwata illa billah. Astaghfir Allaha al-azhim min kulli dhanbin wa atubu ilaihi.
(Glory be to Allah; praise be to Allah; there is no god but Allah; Allah is Greatest. There is no power or strength except by the will of Allah. I ask forgiveness of Allah from all my sins and repent to Him.)
9- Once you have been weaned of these pernicious habits, you should seriously consider marriage; marriage is the protection against temptations.
I pray that the Beneficent Lord of Mercy save us all from the evil inclinations of our souls and make us hate disbelief, transgressions and sins; and may He endear to our hearts faith and good works. Ameen.
Allah Almighty knows best.
Editor’s note: This fatwa is from Ask the Scholar’s archive and was originally published at an earlier date.
