Re: Physical Involvement
Looks like this is a Hadith. Hadiths aren’t final word of law for some but guidelines on how to be the best Muslim possible beyond the 5 MANDATORY pillars. Most people take what’s in Quran as mandatory word of law. I’m pretty sure no one is perfect enough to follow all Hadiths but sure us humans can pick and choose what’s most convenient for us. Anything in the Quran about this topic? Because lying and deceiving are explicitly prohibited in Quran AND Hadiths many times.
And everything in religion is there for a reason. Likely this Hadith was stated to prevent people from boasting about sins to prevent corruption of society. If someone keeps bragging about how amazing their experiences were with premarital sex, drugs, alcohol people are going to wonder “hmm maybe I should try it” thereby perpetuating sin. And the more you hear and see people commiting the sin the more people get desensitized to it. Instead of saying tauba tauba to physical involvement between a Pakistani guy and girl these days the response is “oh its so common now, not that big of a deal so many people are doing it.” See the impact and potential societal implications of openly discussing sinful experiences? This principle also applies for people who are truly repenting their sins.
Any other use of this principle is likely going against its intended purposes, especially if people are thinking it’s okay to hide and deceive future spouse to make onself feel better about themselves and paint a falsely positive picture of themselves. I personally don’t think it should be viewed as a get out of jail free pass for your past but thats how this Hadith is most likely going to be misused. The reality of human nature is that we as humans are often more ashamed of painting ourselves in a negative light to other people and our society than we are of shaming ourselves in the eyes of Allah. This is why even in our most Islamic societies we often are commiting sins secretly behind everyone’s back, chup chup ke. Whether its in Pakistan or Saudi, behind closed doors there is rampant prostitution and human trafficking, alcohol is flowing, unmarried men and women are being sexual with each other, men are raping women, mulwis sexually abusing children, theres infidelity, incest, and several other vices. It’s very difficult to know who is presenting themselves in a genuine way or not especially during the rishta prcoess because its all hidden from public view, we are more worried about others finding out and hurting our public image than truly repenting. Its the sinner who is proactively doing the concealing of his/her sins, but justifies it by saying Allah has concealed it for me. And using this Hadith for the former is WRONG. Just because something is permitted in our religion doesnt mean it’s acceptable in all of its applications. People must have a lot of faith and trust in humanity if they think this Hadith will be properly applied by our people and not misused.
And most of the posters in this dicussion are against what we consider misuse of this Hadith, not against Islam. Ill personally be telling my future wife about my sins if she asks regardless because for me that’s the morally right thing to do, I’d rather not lie or hide or deceive her and create the foundation of the relationship on a lie–often the truth come to light eventually anyways. But to each his own, everyone has their own interpretations of religion.