The following video refers to a story of a young man, who signed up for a 5 years membership to a pornographic website, which delivered explicit content not only to his inbox every week, but he auto-forwarded those very emails to his friends.
Six months later however, the brother passed away in an accident, and to this day, his friends receive those pornographic emails every week, and will continue to do so for the remaining 4.5 years of his subscription. We can take many lessons away from this story alone about the nature of addictions.
Lesson #1: Addiction blinds us from the ultimate reality – that is Death. There will come a day when each of us will have to face our own deaths.
[blank_space height=’1em’]Just as you may have heard me say that addictions do not discriminate based on age, status, level of religiosity, neither does death. Your compulsive turning to unwanted sexual behaviors blinds you from this reality of death and keeps you in a state where you are not prepared for it.
As mentioned in this story of this brother (may God forgive him and have mercy on him), the harm is never only to ourselves and the consequences extend to people around us, and ultimately our aakhirah is also affected. The addiction blinds you from seeing these ultimate realities by deluding you with thoughts of:
- “I can stop when I want to.”
- “I’m not harming anyone,”
- “I’ve got all the time in the world to change”
And what the addiction doesn’t do, is remind you that Allah has set at an appointed time of death for each and every one of us, as it was set for this young man.
Lesson #2: Addiction blinds us from the reality – that it will get progressively worse over time if not treated or given the right attention.
[blank_space height=’1em’]If you were to take a bird’s eye view of this brother’s story, you may realize that more and more explicit content is needed to sustain the ever growing hunger of the addiction. One time is not enough, as the urge only becomes stronger.
The problem continues to grow worse through years and years of exposure.
What may seem harmless and not a problem at all, or what seems to be a compartmentalized part of your life is lying dormant to take your life.
In the moment you may temporarily forget about the consequences, however that will not stop the consequences from occurring. And “temporary moment” after “temporary moment” will sure take its toll on you, its victim.
It is the silent killer that destroys the self, relationships, wealth, and ultimately our relationship with Allah and our final destination.
Lesson #3: Addiction blinds us from the reality – that we must change ourselves before our appointed time.
[blank_space height=’1em’] Allah SWT says:“The repentance accepted by Allah is only for those who do wrong in ignorance [or carelessness] and then repent soon after.It is those to whom Allah will turn in forgiveness, and Allah is ever Knowing and Wise. But repentance is not [accepted] of those who [continue to] do evil deeds up until, when death comes to one of them, he says, “Indeed, I have repented now,” or of those who die while they are disbelievers. For them We have prepared a painful punishment. [Surah an-Nisaa: 17-18]
We are also told by the Prophet peace be upon him who said,
“Allah spreads out His hand at night to accept the repentance of those who committed sins during the day, and He spreads out His hand during the day to accept the repentance of those who committed sins during the night. (He will continue to do this) until the sun rises from the West.” [Narrated by Muslim]
This is all a reminder that the door of tawbah is always open for me and you but we’ve got to step in that door of opportunity before it closes.
As the ayahs from Surah An-Nisaa mention, ignorance may mean that you did not understand the real reason behind your unwanted sexual behaviors, and to the extent to which it was harming you and others around you.
But there has to be a cut-off point where we stop turning to that excuse of being ignorant and actually take personal accountability.
Just right now, if you were to think of yourself, 5 years down the road, or 10 years down the road, what are the physical, emotional and spiritual consequences that your addictive behaviors are going to have on you, or your family?
You don’t have to experience those consequences to finally learn your lesson and as in the case of this young man that opportunity to rectify yourself may never come, so why wait?
Thank u Zeyad for sharing that video followed with your insights on its implication.Non of us of course would want to have that end. But the sad truth is we can’t just because of somebody reminding us about the consequences. The heavy user of of adult movies and pornography may be able to stop if there is a good reason and one would be not to die that way. But the real addict, won t remember that story for long. They may decide to repent and stop forgood. Actually they have tried that a lot. And it never worked. It may work for.acouple of daysor few weeks or even sevral months. Sooner or later we go back.
Just deiciding never work unless followed by action.
The real sex addict would notstop acting out sexually no matter what unless they experience an entire psychic change.
Feeling remorseful, guilty, wanting tobe close to Allah.lower the gaze, avoiding triggers, participating with the muslim community may be all good. But they are short lived unless we experience a deep and a vital religious or spiritual experience leading to a personality change.
As long as one follows his desire he/she will fall in to the trap of Shaitaan. A true believer is the one who subjugates his desires to the command of Allah(swt). Let us make sincere repentance that from now on we won’t fall victim to the plots of Shaitaan and will work hard to suppress our evil desires insha Allah.
i repent to almight ALLAH.Allah forgive me
JazakAllah khair for this post. The video is very powerful and it contains valuable lessons. May Allah save us and rectify our souls. I still can’t get over the auto-forwarding. SubhanAllah.
i thought of sharing this story with community brothers and sisters in the forum. But i know i never could give so much benefits from the story like brother zeyad did. Really mashaAllah.
There is another really terrifying story that a sheikh shared when he has been asked about pornography and how to deal with it.
“There was a boy from some arabic country.
One day his family heard a big smash occurred in his room.
And where they went there, the door was imposible to open, they attempted but it was hard.
When they succed in oppening the door what they saw it was horryfing, the boy was naked and dead in the groung.
Maybe he had difficulties when the soul was getting out(just like when a bad soul gets out) thats why they heard that noise.
And subhanAllah in his computer there were alot alot of pictures and movies(pornographic) he was watching.
La lawle we la Quwete il-la bil-lah. What an ending…!
May Allah save us and every muslim from the bad ending.
I hope and i ask Allah to heal every muslim before he goes from this world. How we are going to meet Allah if we die with this..
Lets just everyone of us remember this constantly, just like the prophet sal-lAllahu alejhi we selem said: The remainder of death is the destroyer of the pleasure’s.
I repent to ALLAH.