The nobleness of women will always be on the line when we fail to apply Islamic ettiquetes and graces.

Friends come and go these days. But what if they choose to stay? What are your options as a muslimah? In Islam we have to understand the religious rules and obligations and apply them to our lives everyday. Some women feel that it is okay to have male friends and that there is nothing wrong with it. Regardless if we can "handle ourselves" or not. They will vehemently defend their right to have men in their lives who are not Mahram.

Muslim women should be in the company of Mahram men whenever possible. We know that there is school, college, and our jobs and that sometimes we cannot avoid being in the company of muslim or non-muslim males. Work and school atmosphere is okay but what happens when it comes to males wanting to be friends or more.

Most times we see friends as people we can "hang out" with, party with, be alone with to chat. This is not proper adab in Islam. As Muslim women we should not be in these situations unless there is a legitimate reason to do so, work, school, college, etc. Most muslim women and young girls want to have this type of freedom to have relations with males. Most find nothing wrong with it.

Islam does not promote or allow free intermingling of the sexes for the simple reason that whenever men and women are together, there surely can or always the possibility, whether latent or actual, of being tempted to do something improper. Either we lable it as a simple mistake or it just happened. If we were not in the position in the first place, nothing would happen. We forget that Shaitan is always in the innocent mix..

Two types of men:
Mahram-these are the men who are halal for women to be in their company as the women cannot marry these men.(fathers, uncles, grandfathers, nephews, sons, and grandsons) cousins are omitted as they can be married in Islam.

Non-Mahram-these are the men who are haram for women and women can marry them.

As muslim women we must lower our gaze and guard our mosdesty even when we are at school, college, stores, etc. Most men/women cannot held a relationship in the friendly way, they usually want more. They tend to get to know far too much about eachother than they should. Their socializing tends to put them in a predictable position. Most muslim women are becomming so westernized in their Islam that they truly cannot see beyond their nafs at times. Thus having male friends starts to be "no big deal" to them.

Take for example:

You have diabetes. The doctor says not to have sugar. You love sugar and feel that even a little cannot hurt. So you sneak and have sugar in all forms little at a time. Because you do not feel bad, you assume that the doctor was wrong. So you outright start to consume more sugar until one day your sugar has risen so high that you pass out. The doctor says that your sugar high could have caused a stroke, blindness, kidney failure or many other illnesses. You realize that you just have to leave the sugar alone if you want good health. Without all the excess sugar, your body is back to normal, and your sugar is under control. But you sustained nerve damage and some numbness in your limbs. Was the sugar worth having the damage to the body? Would you give it up and find a way to consume natural sugar? Would you keep eating sugar because you feel that you are going to die from something?

This is somewhat the same as having male friends. What happens when you wish to marry? Would your new husband like it if you had these male friends? Your in-laws? Would you allow them to visit if hubby was not home? Would you feel good confiding in your male friend? What if he gets angry with you and tell your secrets? What if he describes you to his friends? So many things could go wrong. Just like diabetes-it can be a silent killer-a killer of the chastity, a killer of the emotions, and affections.

Just my 2cents worth. What do you say?

yes i agree with you sis
i totally condemn free intermingling with the opposite gender

this is a matter that is happening in the lives of our fellow muslimas without them even knowing
i wouldnt exactly know about married women or women, as for teenagers i do know that the free intermingling with males has become very common and a HABIT as people dont seem to know the harm of it or what harm COULD come of it

the one thing that i have most noticed is that when some teenagers are mixing with the opposite gender they get close in due time start a relationship, get to know one another and slowly that activates the feeling of love they think that what they are feeling is TRUE LOVE and so they give into the temptations and take their relationship to the 'next level'. now they think that what they have done will acheive even more love for one another in the near future.
the next day they start to get these weird feelings for eachother they kno that what they have done was amazing but still they now start to avoid speaking to eachother or meeting, sometime has passed now they dont kno where they stand one of them meets someone who starts as a friend becomes very fond of that someone and you know what happens next.
now this has happened to ALOT of my mates and the thing i find most annoying is that they dont learn from their mistakes, they kno of what the aftermath of their actions will be but even so they go and get their selves engaged in those activities.

now in these situations its not fair to actually blame the female but ones feeling should be mutual for both genders as it takes two to tango

as for myself i avoid having non mahram male company most of the time its not just because my parents condemn it, i understand of why they condemn it and ive seen alot of my friends mistakes so it puts me off also like the saying goes
"lifes to short to learn from your own mistakes, learn from the mistakes of others"
and i actually take heed from this saying as its very true sometimes in life you dont get second chances and thats what makes this life even more difficult.

sis the thing i dont know is, how to point out to my friends that what they are doing is wrong its very difficult especially if your trapped in shaitaans net
i care about these girls and what willl happen to their future and its vice versa but they care unislamically and i care islamically
meaning if i was to go out on a first date with someone they would care ALOT
as for me if they were to go out on a date i would care alot by telling them its not right lol

any advise would be very much appreciated
jasaaaks

as long as u've mentioned to them that they're doing something wrong, u've done ur duty.

its up to them to listen to it. u cant go around forcing religion down people's throats. that will drive people further away.

in my opinion, the problem arises because teenagers are unable to have patience. they can't foresee when they will realistically get married and fulfil their desires properly. our communities fail to encourage young marriage and a teenager who wants to get married is usually unable to voice his/her desire because of the general taboo around the topic. and also, young marriage is potentially more risky by its very nature as there is an inability to fulfil resposibilities through lack of finance/life experience/maturity and this leads to marriage failure.

with no end to the wait till marriage to fulfil desire, teenagers inevitably look for other ways to fulfil them.

if u make it thru without succumbing to temptation to the point where marriage is finally on the cards, then its easier to stay controlled, because you think long term...u think 'ah well, whats the point having a girlfriend, im gonna be married before long anyway!' and vice versa for girls.

so to solve the problem, marriage needs to be discussed earlier, not just as a concept, but as a real thing that teenagers see themselves working towards. they need to see that their actions today might affect their marriage, and that can only be done when the idea of marriage is actually tangible in their heads.

or they can adopt my super rule which i made up myself and personally try to implement (although it's not as easy as it looks ). "only do what you would accept of your children".

anyway, i've talked about this before so no need to go further.

i kno that ive done my duty by enjoining them as they are also my close mates but its not about duty here its about the fact that they could wake up one day and extremely regret their actions and ruin their lives in the process

i have made my point to them and they also know what im trieng to point out but in this situation unfortunaly marriage is not the answer as its the last thing they desire.
what they are after is abit of fun without anyone judeging them or realising the consequences afterwards they are not ready for marriage (in my oppinion) as ive also heard them stating so themselves. i think they have just been very badly influenced by the western side of things meaning they now want a western lifestyle no strings attached

years before all these problems arised they were even more apt students than me
in madrassah and at that particular point in life i actually thought that they had a chance to become an alimah or someone religious who could actually advise people about deen. but in the present its actually turned out the exact opposite im not complaining but i do care alot as they are my sisters in islam, its just really fustrating knowing that your helpless to them

some good points made here