Full Lecture Transcript (Cleaned)
Teaching and gender interaction — 0:00
uh the next question i have is from sister nejwa she does not mention her location she mentions that she is from a land where typically women do not teach at co-educational schools where the schooling is gender segregated however she has now moved to another land where co-education is the norm her profession is a school teacher and now she is feeling uh you know shy that am i able to teach in such a situation there will be boys and girls over there and she is not accustomed to teaching boys she is only accustomed to teaching girls so she asks is there any islamic prohibition for her to teach young men given that the culture that she's now in is co-educational oh the response to this uh the issue of intermixing of the genders the intermixing of men and women is one that the sharia has some guidelines and then the sharia allows the rest of it to be dictated by culture this is a very important point in some aspects the sharia takes complete control and it will tell you do this and don't do that in other aspects the sharia will be silent and culture will dictate and in some there's a little bit of sharia mixed with the rest of it will be culture and intermixing of the genders is one such area where the sharia has some guidelines and then the rest can be culture sensitive in other words if you fulfill the guidelines the rest is going to be dependent on the culture of the land that you live in and so we have for example from the sharia when it comes to intermixing when it comes to men and women interacting together we have some very simple guidelines and of the most important guidelines as the prophet sallallahu alaihi wasallam said let no man enter upon a lady whose husband is absent meaning he's gone on a journey because remember those days the man would go for many weeks or months on end and so the lady would be left alone in the house so the prophet saw said let no man enter into the house of somebody who has gone traveling and his lady his wife is there you know absent from her husband except that he has another man with him so nobody should enter the house of a lady so for example somebody has to deliver some food somebody has to deliver groceries somebody has to service something of the house or something so nobody should enter in alone there should not be privacy there should be somebody there that is also with the person so that everybody maintains a decorum and a proper characteristic also we know that the sharia has forbidden halwa and khalwa means that a man and a woman that are obviously not related to one another that they are alone in a place that nobody has access to so a closed room or something of this nature this is considered khalwa the sharia also has guidelines with regards to dress with regards to interactions both genders have to be dressed appropriately both genders have to act in a dignified manner avoid flirtatious talk speak in a manner that you know gives the sense of gravitas and decorum that is appropriate for our religion of islam because we all understand the reasons why these laws have come is that we protect the institution of marriage we do not open up any doors of evil now given all of these laws beyond this how much can the two genders interact and mix together for example can you know families that come together couples friends come together and they're sitting together on the same dining table you know various friends and their you know husbands and wives all come together and they're sitting at the same dining table believe it or not this is culture sensitive and i know for some of my viewers they've never heard of this that why is this question even being asked and again the more you travel the more you live in different cultures the more you understand that different societies have different norms for example in more conservative lands like saudi arabia and other gulf states it is very very rare almost unheard of for genders to be interacting together and that in and of itself is neither islamic nor an islamic that is the way that that culture is frankly the sahaba if you look at if you read the seer if you read the books of early islam the sahaba had a level of interaction that was definitely more than the level of interaction that takes place in many of the gulf countries in our times in public in the marketplace in the bazaars in the masajid men and women knew each other by their first names and they would address one another in public and ask a question that needed to be asked there was no shame or harm in doing that in our times in those societies it is completely taboo it is unheard of that a person is going to address somebody outside of his or her immediate family and again i'm not saying that's right i'm not saying that's wrong i'm simply telling you status quo that is the way that it is in those lands and what i am saying the sharia allows cultures to take charge and to you know go sometimes on the more uh segregational side between genders and sometimes on the less segregational as long as its barriers are met and in fact this difference goes back to the very beginning of islam and it goes back to the cultures and societies in the early days of islam in the famous book the muata of imam malik which is the earliest book of hadith that has been written or one of the earliest books of hadith imam alekdeid 179 hijrah in the imam a man asked imam malik that basically can a man and his wife sit with a guest and entertain them on the same dinner table basically right so basically somebody has come and you know the wife and husband are sitting there and can they eat together partake of the meal together and imam malik said there is no sin there is no haraj there is no problem in this as long as it is the custom of their people to do so and in medina at that time it was the custom to do so it wasn't an issue that men and women as long as they're dressed appropriately they're sitting on the same if well obviously they didn't have a table tables came later on but they're sitting on the same area and they're sitting together to eat now imam ahmad ibn hambal heard or read this anecdote from imam malik was in baghdad this is a hundred years you're a little bit more than 100 years later so imam ahmad read this anecdote not quite a hundred but you know around eight years after this so imam ahmad heard of this anecdote many decades later and he read of this and he was in baghdad and in baghdad because of the culture and because of the wealth and by the way another issue generally it's not the rule of thumb but generally speaking uh the more wealth and the more uh privilege that came in those societies the more segregation was possible and you know the more rudimentary type of lifestyle you know it didn't allow for that type of segregation so baghdad is not the capital of the world not just the muslim world it is the political and intellectual and economic capital of the world it is the largest city the wealthiest city by the time even and heard already of this and he was the the narration goes he was amazed he was astonished like wow imam malik allowed this because in his time in his place it was unheard of that you know men and women would sit at the same place that were not related to one another and then partake of that meal so imam understood that's a different culture and in our culture in baghdad that is something that is not going to happen so this is something that does vary from time to place to culture to civilization and therefore as long as the islamic rulings are met which is appropriate interactions appropriate dressing uh you know everything is that the sharia has asked no all of this is done the rest as we said is culture sensitive so this lady the sister asks our sister nejwa i'm assuming she's coming from a gulf country because that's really generally where co-education is is completely segregated and now she is living in a land where it is now not segregated so she is asking is there a shadowy prohibition and the response is that there is no prohibition per se as long as she is dressed appropriately and uh interactions insha allah i'm assuming obviously will uh all be done in a manner that is dictated by the sharia in and of itself there is no haraj or problem with men and women interacting in public in a dignified manner that having been said and by the way imam anawi mentions this in his book image more imam now he mentions that and that is because of men and women the mixing of men and women is not haram in and of itself as long as it is not done in as long as it is not one man one woman mixing in the privacy of ones or you know being alone in the privacy of a house or something then this is not something that is haram per se this is writing this that there's nothing wrong with many women being in public together interacting together in public that's not haram per se that having been said i must also point out that in in me having said this i also have to add the caveat which is that plenty of studies have shown that especially you know in the adolescence phase that it is in fact better for young men and young women to be separated during the educational process it is in fact far more conducive for a better academic environment it is more conducive to study to higher grades to concentrating and that is understood that that is an age from especially from the age of let's say 13 to 18 and even beyond this that that is an age where you know your you're you're bringing together you know two opposites that are definitely going to attract and it does have its share of dangers now of course this is not uh to address your particular questions because you are not in control of uh the society you're in i'm merely pointing out that especially for my audience that finds this question you know strange or troubling and i do have members of my audience that are also from all sides of the spectrum uh where you know sometimes the question itself is too liberal or too conservative what not and again i'm somebody who's trying to cater to many different audiences here and my point is that i understand you problematize the question oh my god how can somebody ask about such a simple question of course gender should be interacting together and my response is that well that's the society you and i have been born into that's the society where the concept of gender segregation is almost unheard of dare i say almost nobody of the next generation can even imagine a society where genders are pushed to not necessarily just be together where there should be a natural segregation if not an actual segregation which is enforced in some gulf countries the sharia without a doubt would suggest some form of natural healthy segregation when there's no need to be intermixing the very notion of gender segregation the very notion of having men and women not necessarily completely intermixed with one another is alien to many people who are listening to this question because they've never imagined or seen or visualized a society where that is possible as somebody who's lived in both types of societies where gender segregation was harshly enforced and where there's complete intermixing let me tell you honestly there are definitely very major pros and cons in both of these there's no question about that there's major pros and cons it's not that simplistic and the point is that we also need to understand that there is a lot of good as well and perhaps the good is far more than the bad where there is some type of segregation that is is there and we see this in simple statistics of our society and our time and our place it is estimated that according to some latest surveys that up to 60 of teenagers of high school we're talking about high school up to 60 of them are engaging in pre-marital intercourse this is in america that is a staggering statistic you're talking about 17 year old 16 year olds and more than half of them are engaging in premarital what do you think is going to happen what do you think that's going to cause is that something that is healthy or not and by the way of that you know around five percent or so are actually you know in middle school also basically below the age of 13 they are beginning i mean what is going to happen when you have daily uh you know interactions between uh the genders at this age and you know the hormones are just coming in is that something that is really the wisest or not so all of this having been said the sister is asking a very specific question and i'm saying it is halal and permissible i still point out that we should also understand the sharia does have a lot of wisdom and even if some things might be permissible it's permissible to interact in public with the opposite gender still some amount of healthy segregation where we have without going overboard because again we you know definitely have to take into account that a harsh segregation um does is counterproductive in a society where uh that segregation does not take place and i've spoken about this in other areas and issues but again to be very clear that in lands where gender segregation is unheard of to try to force a very strict segregation within our communities and within our masajid is completely counter-intuitive and counterproductive because especially given the technology and and whatnot it's not going to achieve its goal rather what i'm suggesting is a healthy an organic segregation and that's something that every community should come together and have a very frank discussion a very open discussion between various gen the two genders and various segment age segments as well very important you bring uh the young men and women you bring the elders and you have a frank conversation that okay should we have a barrier or not for example should we have this and that for example in the time of the prophet sallallahu alaihi he was men and women would be entering from one door and suggested he said a messenger of allah why don't we assign that door to the women and that door to the men and the process and readily agreed so here's that organic segregation where why should men women be jostling and shoving through the same door if they're able to they weren't able to or that i didn't didn't come in the beginning if they're able to let's say have two separate doors we know that in the time of the prophet sallallahu alaihi salam there was not a physical barrier but the women were at the back and the men were at the front that's a natural and healthy segregation it's not something that is enforced by a wall rather it's you know and in fact it is authentically narrated that a lady uh was having trouble hearing what the processor said so she leaned forward and she said you know dear brother may allah have mercy on you what did the prophet saddam say and the brother leaned back and answered oh he said such and said this is an authentic hadith uh in muslim muhammad and others that the ladies said i couldn't hear what the prophet said so i leaned forward and said may allah have mercy on you can you tell me that shows that there is just a barrier i mean not a barrier a space between them but there was interaction going on and there's nothing wrong with that why should there be something wrong with that so my point being the the sister is asking a question the response is very straightforward that it is in fact not problematic at all that having been said it raises the broader question about gender interaction and what is called an arabic and the response is that in and of itself as imam know we said an amount of intermixing is natural and a part of society in and of itself is not haram nonetheless one should be aware that the sharia does understand that just unbridled mixing let's say this is not something that is healthy it is not the default and we should try our best to be reasonable in this regard that given the circumstances of society take into account the norms of our sharia and have a middle ground in our communities and our masajid and allah subhanahu wa ta'ala knows best foreign