The Web has Netted our Marriages

There is an alarming increase in the number of marriages that have broken down or are on the verge of breaking down due to the husband’s involvement in internet dating and web pornography. This is a new form of sin involving modern-day technology. Here we have zinaa via the net. Young and old husbands are spending hours at odd times of the day and night chatting to women over the net.

With the cheap availability of laptops and notebook computers, we now have mobile zinaa. Wherever the intender of evil is, he can access the internet and pornographic websites and chat-rooms via his laptop. This is zinaa while on the move. Some ignorant men labour under the false notion that it is fine just chatting to women over the net, as long as there is no physical contact. This is how they soothe their conscience. But understand that Rasoolullah (sallallahu alayhi wasallam) prohibited zinaa of the eyes (looking), zinaa of the ears (hearing), zinaa of the tongue (speaking) and zinaa of the hands (touching). On the basis of this hadith in Bukhari Shareef, how can we ignore the clear-as-daylight sin of the hands when that unfaithful husband sits at his keyboard and types in those haraam words and messages. The Holy Quran warns that even our fingers shall be resurrected and shall bear testimony for or against us! (Surah Qiyamah, verse 4, and Surah Yaseen)

It is despicable in the extreme to hear of outwardly pious people who dress Islamically and guard their eyes from looking at women in the street, indulging in this evil past time and satiating their eyes on haraam pictures over the net. They believe that no one sees them. Alas, such men are utter fools who have been duped by their lowly nafs and shaytaan. Allah says in The Holy Quran: “Does he not know that Allah is watching him?” (Surah Iqra’) “And Allah knows your movements (outside the home) and your living conditions (inside the home)” (Surah Muhammad). “Verily nothing in the heavens or in the earth remains hidden from Allah” (Surah Aala Imraan, verse 5)

One wise man states in prose: “O You who strives in sin behind locked doors, know that the Knower of the unseen and the present is ever present; He has the power to expose you, even in the darkest corner of the earth. Do not be deceived by concealment, for The Gaze of Allah penetrates all barriers.”

When the wife eventually discovers her husband’s naughty cyber escapades, then all hell breaks lose. It is then that all the months of internet pleasure is mercilessly expunged from the husband’s system through stress, depression, and marital misery. Well, he has to blame himself for falling to temptation in the very first instance. The Quran declares: “Whatever calamity befalls you is because of your own handiwork” (Surah Shoora)

The amazing part of this whole sordid scenario is that even after having to go through hell, with the wife threatening to expose him, demanding her talaaq, and eventually walking out on him with the kids, the blessed idiot still goes back to his depraved sexual mannerisms and internet romps. When, in the name of all that’s good, will this husband learn his lesson? Allah Ta’ala save us from addiction to sin, aameen. It appears that these poor souls, like alcoholics and drug addicts, drown their miseries by indulging in these filthy misdoings.
In the next edition of Al-Farouq, we will, Insha Allah, offer a cure to this malice that has ravaged homes of good Muslim couples.