I Have Broken Someone’s Heart. Can I Give Charity on His Behalf?

Answered by Shaykh Abdurragmaan Khan

Question: Assalam alaykum,

I broke off a sinful relationship with a young man that was intending to head towards marriage.

Now he is heartbroken and I feel guilty for having dragged him along while unsure about my feelings and causing him this heartache now.

Would giving sadaqa be allowed for me to make up for wronging him and causing a believer pain?

Answer: Wa alaykum al-Salam

May Allah bring ease to your affairs and grant you a spouse that will be of benefit to you in this world and the next.

It is permissible give charity in the name of someone else. There are two methods in which you may do so:

1. You intend giving the charity on behalf of so and so at the time of giving charity. [al-Rawd al-Murbi’]

2. You pray to Allah to gift the reward of the charity to so and so after having had given the charity. [Mugni al-Muhtaj]

Further, in his famous Hashiya, ibn Abidin advised that it is more virtuous for whosoever gives voluntary charity that He intends Allah shares the reward with all Muslims, males and females, for the reward reaches them without his reward diminishing in any way.

And Allah knows best

Wassalam
[Shaykh] Abdurragmaan Khan

Shaykh Abdurragmaan received ijazah ’ammah from various luminaries, including but not restricted to: Habib Umar ibn Hafiz—a personality who affected him greatly and who has changed his relationship with Allah, Maulana Yusuf Karaan—the former Mufti of Cape Town; Habib ‘Ali al-Mashhur—the current Mufti of Tarim; Habib ‘Umar al-Jaylani—the Shafi‘i Mufti of Makkah; Sayyid Ahmad bin Abi Bakr al-Hibshi; Habib Kadhim as-Saqqaf; Shaykh Mahmud Sa’id Mamduh; Maulana Abdul Hafiz al-Makki; Shaykh Ala ad-Din al-Afghani; Maulana Fazlur Rahman al-Azami and Shaykh Yahya al-Gawthani amongst others.