Repentance and Punishment for Adultery in Islam
5-2-2025 | IslamWeb
Question:
A repentant unmarried Man want know how to carry out the punishment for adultery on myself. I repented to Allah, but I still feel very guilty about what I did. I had Haram relationship with a non-Muslim girl who'd lost her first ovary due to health issues after pregnancy. She had lost her fetus because her ex-husband had hit her in the stomach before she divorced him. 2 month after Our relationship, she suffered pain, and her doctor found an ectopic pregnancy caused by me, endangering her life. Surgery was required, and her second ovary was removed. The girl is now barren and childless and cannot have children, she'd previously suffered ovarian cysts and pain before our relationship. I asked her to marry me, but she refused because she no longer wanted to marry any man after that and wanted to devote herself to learning the Islamic religion and Islamic knowledge after she had been guided. She's an unsupported orphan with only a younger half-brother living with his dad
Answer:
All perfect praise be to Allah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allah, and that Muhammad, sallallaahu 'alayhi wa sallam, is His slave and Messenger.
There is no doubt that adultery is one of the major sins, but whoever repents, Allah the Almighty accepts his repentance, and the one who repents from sin is like one who has no sin. So, this man's repentance is sufficient between him and his Lord.
The carrying out of hudud (legal corporal punishments) is entrusted to the Muslim ruler, and it is not for the general public to carry them out. If there is a ruler who enforces such Hudud, this man is not religiously obligated to confess in order for the punishment to be carried out on him. Instead, he is required to conceal his sin, as stated in the Hadith narrated in Sunan al-Bayhaqi: The Prophet, sallallaahu 'alayhi wa sallam, said, “Whoever commits any of these disgraceful acts should cover himself with the veil of Allah, for whoever exposes his sin to us, we will enforce the Book of Allah upon him.”
Allah Knows Best.