All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.

May Allah Almighty help us all adhere to the principles of this true religion, Islam, and enable us to be among the dwellers of Paradise in the Hereafter, Ameen.

When you reveal a deep remorse and sincere penitence, we pray to Allah to accept your repentance and help you remain steadfast on His righteous path.

Although this regret is a very healthy sign, it should not turn to unjustifiable panic. You should know that Allah loves those who repent to Him and forgives their sins, no matter how enormous they were. Have hope in Him and trust in His promise to forgive.

It is a human nature to slip and forget once and again. So, as long as he/she returns sincerely to his/her Lord, He will accept him/her and forgive him/her, because it is He who created him/ her and is more merciful to him/her than his/her own mother.

Al-Bukhari narrated that Abu Hurayrah said: I heard the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) say: “A person committed a sin and said: ‘My Lord, I have sinned; forgive me.’ His Lord said: ‘Is My slave acknowledging that he has a Lord Who forgives sins and punishes for them? I have forgiven My slave.’ Then as much time passed as Allah willed, then he committed a sin and said, ‘My Lord, I have sinned; forgive me.’ His Lord said: ‘Is My slave acknowledging that he has a Lord Who forgives sins and punishes for them? I have forgiven My slave.’ Then as much time passed as Allah willed, then he committed a sin and said, ‘My Lord, I have sinned; forgive me.’ His Lord said: ‘Is My slave acknowledging that he has a Lord Who forgives sins and punishes for them? I have forgiven My slave,’ – three times…”

We have already discussed this issue at the beginning of the Book of Repentance. This hadith among others clearly points out that even if the sin is repeated a hundred times or a thousand times or more, and the person sincerely repents each time, his repentance will be accepted and his sin will be erased. If he repents once from them all, his repentance will be valid.

So, you can safely close this chapter in your life and start anew, leading a life of piety and righteousness.

It is noteworthy that you should have concealed your affairs, but when you revealed them to some people (being ignorant of this fact when doing it), this does not affect your repentance nor Allah’s forgiveness if your repentance is sincere. All you have to do is to pray to Allah to cause these people to whom you confided your affair to conceal it or even forget about it. It is He alone in whose hands are the affairs of all people and their hearts are between two of His Fingers.

As for concealing the sin of fornication during marriage contract does not affect the marriage. The union is valid and what happed does not affect its validity. Dr. `Abdul-Fattah `Ashoor, professor of Qur’anic exegesis and its sciences at Al-Azhar University, was consulted for this point and he stated,

This issue refers to telling a lie and this has nothing to do with the validity of the marriage contract as long as the conditions are met.

What we should do is to repent and seek Allah’s forgiveness. We should conceal such affairs from our spouses lest they may not forgive us.

May Allah protect you and guide you to the best.