Is Loving and Imagining Fictional Characters Sinful?

Answered by Shaykh Irshaad Sedick

Question

I eased a lonely youth by imagining friendship with fictional characters, among them two cartoon robots who love each other, and I hope to meet them in Paradise.

For eleven months, I have had intrusive thoughts telling me that imagining them is sinful and that Allah will never make them real. Am I sinning, and is that true?

Answer

In the name of Allah, the Entirely Merciful, the Especially Merciful.

There is nothing ridiculous about this. You are not sinning. Imagining kindness between two cartoon robots is not a sin, and the eleven months of thoughts telling you otherwise are misgivings (waswasa). You should ignore them.

You Are Not Held to Account for What Passes Through Your Mind

The Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said, “Allah has pardoned my community for what occurs within themselves, so long as they do not act upon it or speak of it.” [Bukhari; Muslim] This covers deliberate imagining as much as passing thought.

What Allah holds a person to is action, and the action you describe is finding comfort in a story.

Nothing You Have Described Is Unlawful

The characters are not real people, so there is no unlawful looking or no unlawful relationship.

You describe kind gestures, hand-holding, and companionship between two fictional robots, and you say plainly that you have never felt anything deviant in it.

Affection for a fictional character is not sinful in itself, and the strength of the affection does not change that.

Paradise Is Beyond Our Minds

Allah says of Paradise: “There will be whatever the souls desire and the eyes delight in, and you will be there forever.” [Quran 43:71]

No one can tell you that Allah will never do something that lies within His power, so set that thought aside as the false certainty it is.

What is true is that the realities of Paradise share only their names with what we know here, and that what Allah gives you there will satisfy you more than anything you can imagine. Leave the specifics with Allah and always keep a good expectation of Him.

What This Is

The mark of misgivings (waswasa) is exactly what you have described: you keep asking, you receive an answer, and it does not help. That is not a sign the answer was wrong, but rather the nature of the affliction.

The way of the scholars is to refuse to argue with misgivings and to turn the attention elsewhere.

Principle and Practical Guidance

Treat this answer as the last word on the question and stop searching for another. When the thought arrives, say “I seek refuge with Allah from the accursed devil” and move to something else without examining it, however unfinished that feels.

Give some of the warmth you have for these characters to people as well, starting with one person and something small, because ten years of this friendship shows you have a real capacity for loyalty, and it deserves somewhere to land.

And if the hopelessness you mention is weighing on you beyond this question, please speak to a doctor or counselor about it; there is no shame in that, and it is not a matter of weak faith.

Allah sees the loneliness that sent you to those stories in the first place, and He is nearer to you than the thoughts that have been troubling you.

For related guidance, see Is It Wrong to Feel Deeply Attached to a Fictional Character? and Can Desires For Fictional Figures Be Fulfilled In Paradise?.

And Allah knows best.

[Shaykh] Irshaad Sedick
Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani

Shaykh Irshaad Sedick was raised in South Africa in a traditional Muslim family. He graduated from Dar al-Ulum al-Arabiyyah al-Islamiyyah in Strand, Western Cape, under the guidance of the late world-renowned scholar Shaykh Taha Karaan (Allah have mercy on him), where he taught.

Shaykh Irshaad received Ijaza from many luminaries of the Islamic world, including Shaykh Taha Karaan, Shaykh Muhammad Awama, Shaykh Muhammad Hasan Hitu, and Mawlana Abdul Hafeez Makki, among others.

He is the author of the text “The Musnad of Ahmad ibn Hanbal: A Hujjah or not?” He has been the Director of the Discover Islam Centre, and for six years, he has been the Khatib of Masjid Ar-Rashideen, Mowbray, Cape Town.

Shaykh Irshaad has fifteen years of teaching experience at some of the leading Islamic institutes in Cape Town). He is currently building an Islamic podcast, education, and media platform called ‘Isnad Academy’ and has completed his Master’s degree in the study of Islam at the University of Johannesburg. He has a keen interest in healthy Prophetic living and fitness.