Must I Disclose My Wrongdoing to Someone If It Affects Them?

Answered by Shaykh Yusuf Weltch

Question

Must I disclose my wrongdoing to someone to that person if it may affect the validity of their prayers?

Answer

In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful and Compassionate

Sincere Repentance and Its Conditions

The Mercy of Allah Most High is  available for all who sincerely repent. You must repent from masturbation as well as misuse and defiling of other’s property.

Allah Most High says, “O My slaves who have wronged themselves! Do not lose hope in the Mercy of Allah. Verily Allah forgives all sins. Indeed He is the All-Forgiving and All-Merciful.” [Qur’an; : ]

In order for your repentance to be valid and accepted by Allah Most High it must meet the following conditions:

(1) You must have deep remorse for your sin

(2) You must desist from such sins

(3) You must resolve to never repeat the sin

Generally when the rights of another are vitiated an additional condition must be met, which is:

(4) To right the wrong agressed against another by either returning to them what is rightfully theirs or seeking their forgiveness.

[Nawawi, Riyadh al-Salihin]

However, if admitting your wrongs to another would cause more harm than good (which seems to be the case here), one does not admit their offenses. One can ask them for a general forgiveness without detailing the offense.

Validity of The Prayers

Regarding the validity of this persons prayers – due to the fact that they were unaware of the impurities on their clothing – their prayers will be deemed valid for the following reason.

Semen is seen to be pure in other schools of thought, such as the Shafi’i school. [Ibn al-Naqib, ‘Umda al-Salik]

Undue Hardship Must Be Averted

Thus due to the undue hardship entailed by deeming his prayers invalid we give the opinion of another school to alleviate such hardship. 

Allah Most High says, “and He has not put upon you in the religion any undue hardship.” [Qur’an; 22:78]

From this verse comes the priniciple ‘Hardship must be averted.’

For this reason, undue hardship is to be averted by the scholars even if this means taking a weaker opinion or in extreme cases the opinion of another school. 

[Khadimi, al-Bariqa al-Mahmudiyya, Shaykh Adib al-Kallas]

Hope this helps

Allah knows best

[Shaykh] Yusuf Weltch
Checked and Approved by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani

Shaykh Yusuf Weltch is a teacher of Arabic, Islamic law, and spirituality. After accepting Islam in 2008, he completed four years at the Darul Uloom seminary in New York, where he studied Arabic and the traditional sciences. He then traveled to Tarim, Yemen, where he stayed for three years studying in Dar Al-Mustafa under some of the greatest scholars of our time, including Habib Umar Bin Hafiz, Habib Kadhim al-Saqqaf, and Shaykh Umar al-Khatib. In Tarim, Shaykh Yusuf completed the memorization of the Qur’an and studied beliefs, legal methodology, hadith methodology, Qur’anic exegesis, Islamic history, and several texts on spirituality. He joined the SeekersGuidance faculty in the summer of 2019.