Friday, February 15, 2008

Just friends

Salamz,

So I watching a movie the other day with my parents, it was an Egyptian movie to be exact. After watching a few series with them I've been able to finally understand that dialect better! alhamdulilah.

Just a quick run through about this specific movie. It was about this married man who is suffering from an illness so leaves his family for further treatment. At the hospital he stays at, he meets another female sufferer and they become very close friends. She being single, incidently falls in love with this married man. Anyway his wife finds out where he is and there is a huge fight etc. But he returns to his wife and dies not long after. The girl who he fell in love with was very mature about the situation and although she was hurt, preferred he return to his wife and son.

It was a good movie but whilst watching it, my mother made a comment in Arabic which I will translate.

"It's impossible for a man and a woman to be close friends, without atleast one of them slipping"

Slipping meaning, falling in love with the other friend. It happens with both falling in love as well. I didn't really disagree with my mum. I felt she was actually right.

I don't have male friends who I share a very close relationship with, but I do think the more time you spend with someone of the opposite gender, the more likely you will have strong feelings that will form between you. Remember the hadith, that whenever a male and a female are alone, the shaytaan is there as the third. How scary is that?

I know we're only human, but we should also be able to have self control over who we befriend, right? The are times where a certain situation brings you to work quite closely with someone of the opposite gender, but don't let the shaytan get the better of us I guess. It's almost impossible today, especially in the west, to be in contact with only the same gender. As muslims, it needs to be done with self respect and NO flirting.

It's very easy to slip.

7 comments:

Quest said...

Yeah I don't have non-mahram girls as close friends either. They're more like acquaintances.

But as someone with good intentions of marriage, sometimes I want to get into situations where it's possible to "slip". i.e. work with a girl, see that she's good, fall in love, and then bring up marriage.

I think it's possible to do that with self respect and no flirting, no?

What I'm trying to say is that there's no problem with "slipping", if your end goal is good (marriage), you control yourself, and you intend to talk to the girl and her family about marriage when you're sure about your feelings.

Obviously the "slipping" situation in the movie is of the bad type that should be avoided. But I think there's good slipping too.

Path2Bliss said...

Well if you were intentions were solely marriage based, then it's a different story. Most likely you won't be falling into a "forbidden" relationship.

I guess in this movie though, he could have married both (lol) but polygamy didn't seem like an option.

So yes, I do agree slipping isn't always bad. I was referring to slipping, meaning someone getting hurt though. When you slip in the good way because you want to get married you're not setting yourself to get hurt. You're praying you miss the ground.

Amina said...

i do agree, slipping is very easy but from my experiance I found very good friends among men rather than femals. I must say that many girls I valuated very high, let me down coz of feeling of jelousy or sth minor. but few of my very good friends, are men, stood by me all the way and things were kept in halal family-like atmosphere.

Anonymous said...

I agree you've one interesting blog mashAllah.

Anonymous said...

Assalamualaikum Path2Bliss sister(s),

I would like to congratulate you for your sincere most intentions and daily struggle to achieve your goal of staying on the right path.

I would also like to congratulate you for choosing the right one for yourself, if you did so. Yes, I too have experienced similar instances mentioned in this article in my nearby vicinity happening and I feel sorry about them and liked your smart ideas to counter them.


I appreciate your honesty to speak out and express yourself on this.
Lastly, How did I stumbled on your blog. I attended an Islamic Code of Ethics ACCREDITED weekend class, last week in which an article about FEW GOOD MUSLIM MEN was referred to as a good one to read and reflect. The article also referred to one of muslimquest blog comments ( oh he is here on your blog too (&*(^%&$&%:-), and one of his links brought me here and since then I enjoyed reading each of your posts.


Trust me your posts made me think we should stop and think the world is going. Thank you for that. JazakAllah.

Yes, I too could not make a friend, who is a girl yet :) Call it modesty, call it shyness or just a real self image yet one of the most confident personality I own. I just could not hurt other's feelings and expectations and one of my ways of doing so is I don't let it germinate in first place if possible.

Remaining honest is the key. If any of my sentences does not make sense, ignore it.

One more perspective I got to learn the other day , was to love anyone and even our own THE ONE ( prospective ) only for the sake of Allah Ta'la; And if its not that way then it is into the selfish category kind of love which neither do we seek nor do we expect. Understanding and ability to make each other genuinely smile ( laugh) remains the shortest distance between any two people.

Its better we do not know each other, but reading/writing/responding to blogs will keep us maintain our respective Hijaab and Hay'a and yet be expressive.

I learned cooking since I migrated to this land of surprises last year and my cousins tease me for being a very useful future husband through this.

I just cannot hurt anyone's feeling, as I saw several of my friends' got hurt with (un)reasonable expectations in their life on various occassions. I just keep all trust in Allah Ta'la and let our best endeavor brings the best we deserver.

This is the first post I am vividly mentioning to appreciate your courage and audacity to express yourself honestly. I am no fan of slipping.

You peoples blog is really changing my personal theory that Would some righteous girl ever marrry me? At least I am reconsidering and started doing Istikhara for that sweet one.

This is been my first experience to know how matrimony thing works in America. it is through you people's laconic expressions and blog.

Allah ta'la has a plan for each of us, just use the best use of Du'a Istikhara.

Do I want someone to change for me ? Not at all. be the person you are because in the end what matters is our honesty towards our Allah ta'la and having a good spouse is one of the means to do that. So stay honest.

I do not know how guys who live by their own and their parents back home could /should approach decent family for prospects?


Is that you? I do not know...inshAllah. (:)

Yes, I have started learning arabic :) This time seriously...inshAllah.

Assalamualaikum.

Wael said...

Yes, if you value your deen and you want to remain true to Islamic principles, then definitely a close friendship with someone of the opposite sex is impossible.

The only possible circumstance in which it could work is if there is absolutely no physical attraction between the two, but who's to know? Sometimes people pretend not to feel attraction when in reality they do. Then, when one of the two gets engaged or married, suddenly feelings of jealousy and resentment crop up.

It just doesn't work. Those who claim it does, in my opinion, are fooling themselves.

Furthermore, according to the rules of our Islamic religion, a man is not supposed to be alone in a room with a woman who is not his mahram, nor touch her in any way, nor speak to her anything inappropriate. Clearly, close friendship falls outside these boundaries.

FreelyEnslaved said...

This makes me think of that video survey on YouTube about why guys and girls can't be friends. I think it's true that while they can't be friends without one of them crossing a line, either physically or emotionally, people should still know how to interact with the opposite gender. If our solution is to just avoid them as much as possible, there's a good chance we'll end up slipping up at one point or another. This usually happens when kids go from a Muslim country to a non-Muslim one, or from an Islamic school to a public school, or from high school to college. We need to teach young Muslims how to properly interact around the opposite gender without being unrealistic and saying that they should avoid them altogether. Just my 2 cents. :)