Islam and friendship with the opposite sex

Her friend is too involved with her male colleagues

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Assalamualaikum, please I need your help! My best friend has too many male friends from her college, she talks to them and sometimes goes out with them. She knows it's wrong, but whenever I speak to her regard this she tells me "we work on the same college projects together", but she talks to them as friends, not just as her team members! I don't know what to do with her. Any advice, please?

Alaikumassalam wa rahmatullah,

It appears from your description that she is simply not religious enough to care, and if that is so, then her behavior is just the expression of a deeper ignorance or impiety, meaning that the problem you mentioned may be part of a bigger problem with her understanding or loyalty to her faith.

The thing that could help her most would be to involve her in beneficial activities, for example encouraging her to go with you to a sisters’ halaqa at a mosque. Trying to change a specific behavior does not usually work. But helping her become more involved with Islam through meetings, lectures and so on can affect every part of her life.

My advice is to never make someone your “project” where you try to improve them, that is not a proper attitude to have toward a fellow human. People like to freely reach their own conclusions about how they should behave. At the end of the day nothing you can do will change her unless she decides to change by herself.

On reducing unnecessary physical contact with the opposite sex

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Salam. I have a question to ask. I have a friend at school, who is a boy. We have been friends for 3 years, and our friendship has always been respectful and decent, but lately we’ve been having physical touch. For example, his hair was growing out a little, so he asked me if I could help him try tying his hair. I had to touch his hair plus a little bit of his forehead. He’s also held my hand during the cold recently to give me warmth. What should I do? Thank you.

You could politely inform him that you do not wish for any further contact because of your religious views. The things you mentioned are innocent enough. The problem is that as young persons, both of you will probably have a strong desire to keep increasing your physical contact and intimacy, until, like so many others, you end up getting in a situation that you deeply regret later.

Can a Muslim woman have male friends? The Islamic view of having friends of the opposite sex

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Salam. I have a question over boy friends? Is it okay to have friends who are boys and you know that they won't do anything with you or take your guys friendship over the line? Or should we Muslim girls have no friends who are boys?

Alaikumassalam wa rahmatullah,

There are no texts in the Quran and the Sunnah that apply exactly to having “friends” of the opposite sex. Technically interacting with and talking to people of the opposite sex is not forbidden, and there is nothing wrong with having professional relationships with people of the opposite sex, or having acquaintances of the opposite sex.

But if by “friend” you mean someone with whom you feel an emotional bond (since otherwise they would just be an acquaintance), then even when a friendship is platonic, it is very common for love or sexual attraction to develop, if not in both people then at least in one of them, and this can have many sinful consequences.

We are designed to feel sexually and emotionally attracted to attractive people of the opposite sex. There can never be safety from this attraction. If today you feel that you have full control over your faculties so that there is no way that things could develop beyond a platonic friendship, you cannot guarantee that you will feel this way tomorrow, especially if the friendship develops and you start to like the person more and more. To keep such a relationship within the lawful bounds, you have to defeat your ego’s desires every single time, while it is sufficient for your ego to defeat you just once to fall into sin.

Think of a woman who has recently married and is very happy in her marriage and is totally in love with her husband. Would she risk developing an emotional connection with a man other than her husband? A woman who is not happy in her marriage may be able to justify it to herself, but a woman who thinks she has everything in the world, fears losing it and wants absolutely nothing that could possibly threaten her relationship with her husband will stay away from all other men, even if she thinks that chances are high she can have male friends without it doing harm to her marriage. Since she wants to be absolutely certain that her relationship with her husband continues to be perfect, she will not risk having male friends, in case she starts to feel attracted to one of them, or one of them does something or behaves in a way that harms her relationship with her husband.

In the same way, one whose relationship with God is very close, who loves and fears Him, will not want anything that could possibly threaten this relationship, and friendship with people of the opposite sex is a potential threat, even if they think it has a low chance of doing harm. They value their relationship with God too much to engage in anything that could possibly threaten it.

I have looked at the rulings of many respected scholars and they either strongly discourage such friendships or say that it is forbidden, due to the potential for harm that is involved.

There are various forms of relationships that can exist between an unrelated man and a woman, and most of these fall on a spectrum from prohibited, to questionable, to acceptable and lawful. If by friendship you mean having a male friend that you treat like any of your female friends, in constant contact with them and sharing with them your thoughts and emotions, then that is much closer to the prohibited side and is bound to affect your faith and your life negatively.

As for having polite small talk with a coworker, then there is nothing necessarily wrong with this, although context matters. A 25-year-old man can have a long and comfortable conversation with a 70-year-old female coworker, while if he fears God, he will keep his interactions with a highly attractive 18-year-old female coworker short and polite.