assalam-u-alaikum I visited your fatwa section where there was a question regarding fornication.A friend of mine had premarital sexual relation.she asked for repentence to Allah Almighty and keeps asking for forgiveness everyday.she is now married.I and her husband know about her past relationship.I found it in the fatwa answers that one should not disclose such sin and should ask for repentance to ALLAH and remain under the cover of Allah and if one discloses his/her sin he/she would be entitled to receive the punishment as has been mentioned in Holy Quran.I want to ask that will my friend be entitled to receive punishment?please throw light on this point keeping in mind that she was ignorant about not disclosing her sin to anyone.Please reply early.I would be very thankful to you

All perfect praise be to Allaah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allaah, and that Muhammad is His slave and Messenger.

Indeed, this girl did well by repenting to Allaah from committing Zina (fornication or adultery), but she was wrong to inform you and her husband of her sin. She should have concealed her sin; for more benefit, please refer to Fataawa 83573 and 84052.

However, if she did not know that she should conceal her sin, then we hope that she would not be sinful, but she should avoid doing so in the future.

The following matters should be mentioned:

- Committing sins openly is a grave major sin, and the Quran pointed to this, Allaah Says (what means): {And leave [i.e. desist from] what is apparent of sin and what is concealed thereof.}[Quran 6:120] The interpreters of the Quran said that ‘what is apparent’ is the open sin, and ‘what is concealed’ is the hidden sin, and it is also said that what pertains to the limbs is what is apparent and what pertains to the heart is what is concealed. Indeed, Allaah destroyed previous nations when they committed sins openly and underestimated the punishment of Allaah.

- In addition to this, the noble Sunnah clarified the punishment of those who commit sins openly, as the Prophet said: "All my nation will be forgiven except those who openly disclose their sins." [Al-Bukhari and Muslim] The Prophet then mentioned that an example of disclosing one’s sins is that he commits a sin at night under Allaah’s covering, and in the morning he goes and says (to people): “I did such and such a sin last night.”

In fact, this severe threat applies to whoever speaks out about a sin while boasting of having committed it, or out of luring others to commit it, but the person who speaks about it out of ignorance or asking the scholars to issue for him a Fatwa about what he did, then he is not included in this threat. The Fiqh Encyclopedia reads: “Disclosing one’s sin out of ignorance is not like disclosing it out of boastfulness. Ibn Hajar said: 'If a person intends to disclose the sin and make it public, he angers his Lord.' Besides, Al-Khateeb Ash-Shirbeeni said: 'Speaking about one’s sin for fun is absolutely forbidden.'”

Moreover, An-Nawawi said: “If a person discloses his sin to his Shaykh or his pious friend so that he would teach him how to repent or that he would show him how to get rid of it, then this is permissible.”

Allaah Knows best.