Fatwa No. 42 — p. 71

Question:

What is the ruling on a young woman calling her male cousin via mobile phone or over the internet? Is it forbidden or not?

Answer:

Al-ḥamdu lillāhi rabb al-ʿālamīn. To proceed:

Know, my dear daughter, that there is no special relationship between a male and a female that makes socialising and mixing permissible outside the framework of the marital bond or the bond of unmarriageability (maḥramiyyah). Your male cousin is not your maḥram — for you are permissible to him in marriage and he to you — and therefore casual conversation for the mere sake of chatting and passing time is not permissible.

However, if a serious need (ḥājah jāddah) or an apparent legitimate interest (maṣlaḥah ẓāhirah) arises requiring conversation — due to an urgent matter that has occurred or a situation that has presented itself — then as much conversation as is necessary to address that urgency and fulfil that need becomes permissible, provided the conversation is serious and within proper bounds (bi-l-maʿrūf).

Know, my dear daughter, that most emotional and moral problems begin with conversations such as these that appear innocent — then their beginnings draw one into second steps, and second steps into third steps — and then Shayṭān breathes his whispers, and drags both parties toward what has no praiseworthy outcome, leaving them to regret when regret is of no avail. For no man is ever alone with a woman but Shayṭān is the third of them. (1) And seclusion (khalwah) may be a seclusion of physical proximity, or it may be a seclusion of conversation.

I ask Allah, my dear daughter, to grant you guidance (hudā), God-consciousness (taqwā), chastity (ʿafāf), and self-sufficiency (ghinā).

And Allah Most High knows best.

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Footnotes (Takhrīj):

(1)Recorded by Aḥmad in his Musnad (1/18), ḥadīth no. 114; al-Tirmidhī in Kitāb al-Fitan, chapter “What Has Come Regarding Adherence to the Jamāʿah,” ḥadīth no. 2165; and al-Ḥākim in his Mustadrak (1/199), ḥadīth no. 390 — on the authority of ʿUmar ibn al-Khaṭṭāb (may Allah be pleased with him), that the Prophet (ﷺ) said: “Let none of you ever be alone with a woman — for Shayṭān is the third of them.” Al-Tirmidhī said: “This is a ḥasan ṣaḥīḥ ḥadīth.” Ibn Mufliḥ cited it in al-Ādāb al-Sharʿiyyah (1/302) and said: “Recorded by Aḥmad and al-Tirmidhī with a sound chain on the authority of ʿUmar.” Al-Albānī cited it in Ṣaḥīḥ Sunan al-Tirmidhī, ḥadīth no. 2165.