If you intended to commit a major sin, but did not do so due to circumstances beyond your control, are you considered to have committed it and are you sinful for it?

If the intention to commit a sin is merely a fleeting thought, then there is no accountability for it. However, if the intention is accompanied by a firm resolve to act, then it is a sin. If one abandons it out of fear of Allah, a good deed will be recorded for him. But if one abandons it due to an external hindrance, he is not held accountable for the act itself, but rather for the intention, as it is a sin.

Whoever intends to commit an evil deed and exerts effort towards it, but is then prevented from carrying it out, is sinful and deserves punishment. Scholars have differed on whether his sin is equivalent to that of the one who commits the evil deed or lesser than it.

It is obligatory for whoever intended to commit a sin and was prevented from it, to repent with sincere repentance.