it is narrated from Abū Sufyān, who said:

“The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, would frequently say: ‘O Turner of hearts, keep my heart steadfast upon Your religion.’ I said: ‘O Messenger of Allah, we believe in you and in what you have brought. Do you fear for us?’ He replied: ‘Yes. Hearts are between two of Allah’s fingers; He turns them however He wills.’”

As for His words, Most High:

“A man who commits unlawful sexual intercourse marries none but a woman who does likewise or a polytheist woman; and a woman who commits unlawful sexual intercourse is married by none but a man who does likewise or a polytheist man. That is forbidden to the believers.”

When Allah Most High prescribed punishment for the man and woman who commit unlawful sexual intercourse, He forbade believers to marry either of them, so that they and their sins and evil deeds would be shunned. As He, Most High, said:

“And shun impurity.”

He declared that whoever sits in the company of someone committing such evil is like that person, saying:

“You would then be like them.”

Such a person is his counterpart. Allah Most High has said:

“Gather those who did wrong and their counterparts,”

meaning their associates, companions, those like them, and their peers. Hence it is said: “The listener shares in the backbiter’s sin.”

A group of people who were drinking wine were brought before ʿUmar ibn ʿAbd al-ʿAzīz. Among them was someone who had been sitting with them while fasting. He said: “Begin the flogging with him. Have you not heard Allah say, ‘Do not sit with them’?”

If merely sitting with them and keeping their company temporarily while they commit evil makes a person like them, what, then, of constant companionship?

A husband is also called an ʿashīr (intimate companion), as in the hadith narrated by Ibn ʿAbbās from the Prophet, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, who said:

“I saw the Fire, and most of its inhabitants were women