2 Islamic articles on: gender relations in Islam

Table of contents for the topic gender relations in Islam
  1. Is it permitted in Islam for male doctors to deliver babies?
  2. Can a Muslim woman have male friends? The Islamic view of having friends of the opposite sex

IslamQA: Is it permitted in Islam for male doctors to deliver babies?

Is it haram to have a male doctor deliver a woman's baby?

The generally accepted opinion is that while it is forbidden for a male doctor to see a woman’s ʿawra (the parts of her body that should be covered by the hijab), this is overruled in cases where it is absolutely necessary. So if there are no female midwives or doctors available, and if there is a fear that the woman or the baby’s health and safety may be affected without the help of a male doctor, then it is permitted for the male doctor to deliver the baby.

Source

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

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.

When befriending a person of the opposite sex, there are always two factors in play. We want to connect with them soul-to-soul, to know them as fellow humans and to enjoy their companionship. But we also have our brains’ genetic instincts that can get in our way and fight against us. It is impossible to take away the brain’s awareness that we are dealing with a person of the opposite sex, a person who can potentially become our spouse. Even if we try to keep everything professional and platonic, even if we succeed in having a good friendship for months or years, our brains can always slip up so that we start to get romantically involved with them.

Whether a friendship with the opposite sex is appropriate or not depends entirely on the level of emotional connection with them. The stronger the emotional connection, the more inappropriate the friendship becomes. The more we are emotionally involved with a person of the opposite sex, the more this will interfere with our lives. An extreme example is a husband whose “best friend” is a woman other than his wife. This friendship will no doubt interfere with his relationship with his wife, making her feel left out, and making her feel there is another woman competing with her for her husband’s attention and sympathy.

It is equally inappropriate for two unmarried people of the opposite sex to be best friends. The deeper their emotional connection, the more it will interfere with any romantic relationships they may get involved with.

For a man, it is sometimes very easy to slip up and take an interaction in an inappropriate direction. It is so easy to joke with and compliment the woman and sooner or later the man’s brain may start to go into full “courtship” mode so that he starts to treat the woman as a romantic interest. A pious and self-aware man can have good control over himself so that he always tries to treat women as if they were his sisters (and this is what we should always try to do), but always there is the fact that his own brain’s instincts are his enemy. It prompts him to treat the women as more than just friends. This is something that he will always have to battle.

Another issue with befriending women for a man is that he cannot control what is in the minds of his female friends and how they respond to his friendship. They may not have as much self-control as he does so that they may become romantically attached to him.

When dealing with people of the opposite sex, our brains are always fully aware that this person is a potential spouse. Our brains may constantly prompt us to take the interaction in a romantic direction, so that we have to use our souls to overpower our brains to keep things appropriate.

Befriending a person of the opposite sex is therefore risky. It is not forbidden in Islam, but if we engage in it then we are taking a risk. Sometimes a man meets a woman who like him has very good self-control and has zero interest in becoming romantically attached to him. They can develop a good and beneficial friendship. But the more they interact with each other, and the closer they get emotionally, the more they risk letting things develop too much between them. So both of them have to remain self-aware and hopefully make it a practice to read the Quran daily or do other things that ensure they always have God in mind.

The fatwas I have looked at either say platonic friendships are forbidden or strongly discouraged, due to the risks involved. In reality we do not have anything explicit in Islam to forbid such friendships. There are endless shades of friendship between men and women. On the one end of the spectrum there are men and women who know each other professionally and share their work and interests with each other a few times a year. On the other end there are friends of the opposite sex who chat daily and consider each other best friends. While nothing on this spectrum is strictly forbidden, the risks get greater as the relationship becomes more intimate. The two friends are doing something risky, and they should honestly and sincerely look into their hearts and decide if they are able to manage such risk. If the two friends are mature and intelligent, and if they maintain a very close relationship with God through things like daily Quran reading, then they will likely be able to handle the risk.

Note that spending time in private in the same room as a person of the opposite sex is forbidden in Islam. Above, I am assuming that the friendship is mostly maintained through things like email and social media. It’s best that friends of the opposite sex work to maintain some distance, such as by avoiding sending each other photos, and avoiding speaking on the phone or doing video chats.

Only God knows what level of risk we are able to handle. The most pious and admirable thing to do is to always work to keep friendships with people of the opposite sex under good control, such as by avoiding interacting too much, and by imagining that our father, mother or spouse is watching the interaction.

In a perfect world we would have been able to enjoy close friendships with people of the opposite sex without having to worry about anything (and perhaps it is that way in Paradise, inshaAllah). But in this imperfect world, we have to remain aware of our limitations and we have to act accordingly.