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Is the following Hadith authentic: "Give tidings to the male and female fornicator of poverty, even if after a while"? And is it authentic?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

The hadith with the wording: "Give tidings to the murderer of murder, and to the fornicator of poverty, even if after a while" has no basis and was not narrated by any of the hadith scholars. Likewise, the hadith: "Zina (fornication/adultery) causes poverty" is very weak and not authentic.

However, sins and transgressions, including zina, bring calamities and deprive the servant of sustenance and goodness, as Allah Almighty says: (And whatever strikes you of disaster – it is for what your hands have earned; and He pardons much.) (Ash-Shura: 30). It was reported in a hadith by Ibn Umar, may Allah be pleased with them both, that immorality (zina) causes the spread of epidemics and diseases. It is not far-fetched that Allah would afflict the fornicator with poverty as a punishment for his action.

Ibn Al-Qayyim mentioned that zina combines all evil traits, such as lack of religious commitment, piety, and ghira (protective jealousy). It causes darkness of the face and blackness of the heart, removes the name of faith from its perpetrator, exposes him to the torment of the oven, deprives him of goodness and replaces it with evil, causes alienation and loss of prestige, makes people look at the perpetrator with suspicion, causes tightness in the chest, deprives him of the blessings of the hereafter, and emboldens him to commit other sins.

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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