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Is it permissible for a young man suffering from prostatic congestion due to sexual repression to masturbate or imagine sexual scenes for the purpose of pleasure?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

Masturbation is forbidden in Islamic law because it is the use of the private parts for something other than what they were legislated for, and what is forbidden is not permissible except in cases of extreme necessity. The Sharia has guided those who are overcome by lust to marriage, and if that is not possible, then they should fast, occupy their time with what is beneficial, and stay away from excitants. Thinking and imagining sexual scenes for pleasure is not permissible unless the imagined person is one's spouse, because it falls under wishing for forbidden things, which the Sharia considers fornication, as stated in the Hadith: "The eye commits fornication and the heart commits fornication; the fornication of the eye is looking, and the fornication of the heart is wishing." The male organ must be washed if pre-seminal fluid (madhy) is discharged, because it is impure.

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

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