Giving charity to complete repentance

Question

A fornicator and fornicatress repented. The people of the settlement imposed a fine: “Give out charity (sadaqa) in recompense for your past sins, so that it becomes an expiation (kaffara) for the sins.” So he set aside rupees for the obligatory charity. Now the request is: if, at the urging of the villagers, he makes charity binding on himself of his own free will, what is the ruling? And if he makes charity binding on himself merely because people say so, what is the ruling?

Answer

Where people compel it, such charity is impermissible; where it is of one’s own free will, it is permissible.

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

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