Committing Sins Again After Bay‘ah

Question

Question: I have a friend who lives in Singapore, while his family is in India. For a long time, having fallen into bad company, he went astray: he drank alcohol, committed fornication — in short, every vice there is, he had all of them. Two years ago he went to India, where he took bay‘ah with a certain pious elder and repented at his hand, but here in Singapore, mixing again with the same circle, he once more fell victim to his old habits — that is, he committed all those same vices again.

Answer

Let him continue repenting before Allah, the Pure; let him write a letter to that righteous scholar — if he is alive, otherwise to his successor — and inform him that the things he had repented of, he committed again. For now, let his bay‘ah be accepted anew through correspondence; when the opportunity arises, let him come in person and renew the bay‘ah.

Source: Fatawa Mahmudiyya

Preview. The full text opens with JavaScript enabled.