How Can I Protect Myself from Fornication?
Answered by Ustadha Shazia Ahmad
Question
I’ve been married for nine years, alhamdulillah. For the first eight years, I was not very sexually active, but later in the ninth year, I developed so much desire that I needed it daily. However, my husband married a second wife, meaning he cannot satisfy me daily, and I fear that I will fall into zina (fornication). What can I do?
Answer
May Allah reward you for seeking a permissible means to solve your problem, and may He grant you fortitude and wisdom.
How Often
Imam al-Ghazali states in his Ihya that “a man should make love to his wife every four nights … though he should make love to her more or less than this, according to the amount she needs to remains chaste and free of want since a husband must enable her to keep chaste.”
Check this link:
What Does Islam Say About the Neglect of the Wife’s Sexual Rights?
Patience
From your question, I assume your husband is intimate with you every other day if he spends every other night with you. As such, what he offers you is reasonable, and you must not seek pleasure by any other impermissible means. Instead, I encourage you to restrain yourself and hold off until you see him.
Please take steps to reduce your desire and gain control of your thoughts and emotions while he is gone. Remember this key verse, “What is with you shall perish, and what is with Allah shall last. And certainly, We shall bless those who observed patience, with their reward for the best of what they used to do.” [Quran, 16:96]
Steps
Here are a few tried and tested methods of reducing one’s desires:
- Reduce or eliminate screen time.
- Lower your gaze when you are around non-mahram men.
- Eat less red meat, eat less in general, and fast.
- Supplicate for patience and for this phase to pass.
- Make dhikr or recite Qur’an every time the desires come to you.
- Remember that if you are protecting your private parts for the sake of Allah, He will aid you, and He never burdens anyone with a burden they can’t carry.
Please see these links as well:
How Do I Deal with My Heavy Desire for Sex as a Teenager?
Controlling Sexual Desires When Marriage Is “Put on Hold”
How Can I Resist Temptations and Sins?
How Should a Young Man Control His Sexual Urges and Desires?
Is It OK for Me To Masturbate To Avoid Zina?
May Allah give you the best of this world and the next.
[Ustadha] Shazia Ahmad
Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani
Ustadha Shazia Ahmad lived in Damascus, Syria for two years where she studied aqida, fiqh, tajweed, tafsir, and Arabic. She then attended the University of Texas at Austin, where she completed her Masters in Arabic. Afterward, she moved to Amman, Jordan where she studied fiqh, Arabic, and other sciences. She later moved back to Mississauga, Canada, where she lives with her family.
