be patient is better for you,” then refraining from masturbation is all the more preferable. This indicates that refraining from both is possible.

Since He has permitted something from which one can abstain, this is to ease the burden of religious obligations, as the Most High says:

“Allah wishes to lighten your burden, and man was created weak.”

“Masturbation” is not permissible according to most scholars, both earlier and later, whether one fears hardship or not. The statement of Ibn ‘Abbās and what is reported from Ahmad on this matter apply only to someone whose fear of “hardship”—meaning fornication and sodomy—is so intense that he fears falling into such acts. He was therefore permitted this to lessen the intensity of his distress and desire. As for someone who does this for pleasure, to evoke sexual images, or out of habit—picturing someone while masturbating as though he were having intercourse with them—all of this is forbidden. Neither Ahmad nor anyone else holds it to be permissible. Some scholars have even held that it incurs the prescribed punishment. Refraining from this is obligatory, not merely recommended.

Refraining from forbidden things is obligatory, even when the soul desires and craves them. The Most High says:

“Let those who lack the means to marry remain chaste until Allah enriches them out of His bounty.”

“Remaining chaste” means abstaining from what is forbidden, as in the hadith