Islam’s View on Friendship With Opposite Sex (Part II)

TEHRAN -- Almighty God says in the fifth verse of the blessed Surah al-Ma’ida: “The good things have this day been made lawful to you. The food of those to whom the Book was given is lawful to you, and your food is lawful to them. Lawful to you (in marriage) are the free believing women and the free women from among those who were given the Book before you, provided that you give them their dowries in marriage, neither committing fornication nor taking them as mistresses.”
“Wa la mutakhedhi akhdan” here refers to a secret and illegitimate friendship.
In today’s world, where many Jahiliyyah (pre-Islam ignorance) traditions have appeared in different forms, the idea that choosing a friend of the opposite sex is not an obstacle for single or even non-single people has become commonplace whether in hidden or obvious ways as it existed in the time of ignorance before Islam.
In fact, today’s world has gone beyond the time of ignorance in depravity and sexual immorality, as much as that if it was only allowed to choose a secret friend before, today it is viewed as acceptable and the perpetrators brazenly take pride in it. This shameful custom, which is considered an open and scandalous prostitution, is one of the sinister souvenirs that have been transferred from the West to the East and has become the source of many troubles and problems. Meanwhile, some pseudo-intellectuals and westoxicated figures advise not to suppress instincts and prescribe such relationships for young people to have multiple experiences.
God says in verse 25 of Surah Al-Nisaa, “As for those of you who cannot afford to marry faithful free women, then [let them marry] from what you own, from among your faithful slave-women. Your faith is best known [only] to Allah; you are all [on a] similar [footing]. So marry them with their masters’ permission, and give them their dowries in an honorable manner—[such of them] as are chaste women, not licentious ones or those who take paramours.”
One of the conditions of this marriage is to choose maids who do not commit acts against chastity whether in open or secret. “Akhdan”, the plural of “Khodn” in this verse, originally means friend and comrade, but it is usually refers to people who establish an illicit and secret relationship with the opposite sex, and it should be noted that “Khodn” in the Holy Qur’an applies to both to men and women.
Such relationships cause irreparable psychological and social damage and lead to the weakening of faith and the loss of inner peace. Also, committing illegitimate affairs causes the appearance of immorality in a person. Some experts believe that the existence of privacy between men and women in Islamic law is based on a developmental truth.
In other words, if there is no privacy in the relationship between a boy and a girl, their soul is exposed to this developmental attraction and the positive attractions that are necessary for the evolution of the soul are taken away, since paying attention to limited beauty prevents the human soul from being attracted to absolute beauty. The separation of female and male environments and the creation of privacy in their relationships makes the human soul immune from false sexual attractions. Concluded