Answered by Shaykh Faraz Rabbani
A brother is planning to go for hajj but he has a problem. In the past he went to a brothel but he had no money so he borrowed money from a friend. Considering he committed fornication with this money does he still have to pay it back. Secondly he visited the brothel again, again he had no money so he said to the prostitute he will pay her next time he comes in however the police raided the brothel and closed it down before he could pay her. What should he do with the money. He is worried his hajj wont be accepted if he has unpaid debts.
Walaikum assalam wa rahmatullah,
1. The debt is still due: it is he who sinned with the money. One’s errors do not wipe out others’ dues.
2. He does not need to pay the prostitute or do anything to clear his own dues: the contract between him and the lady was Islamically invalid in the first place.
Imam Sarakhsi (d. 483 AH) said in his Mabsut, a 30-volume work of fiqh, legal reasoning, and comparative fiqh discussion, which he dictated from memory to his students while unjustly jailed in a pot-well in Central Asia,
“Hire is not valid for any [sin such as] singing, wailing and other baseless matters, because it is sin and hiring for sin is invalid. This is because the consequence of a contract is that the item of hire becomes legally binding to provide, and it is not permitted for a person to be legally obliged to sin.” [Sarakhsi, al-Mabsut, 16.38]
And Allah alone gives success.
Wassalam