Tamara Gray – Healthy Gender Interactions Shaykha

Why aren't boys and girls allowed to interact in social places? For

example, if they go out in groups, the relationship between males and

females in Islam is a relationship of respect, and the word I like to

use is professionalism. Boys and girls socializing all over the

place is an open door for temptation and an open door for

all sorts of relationships that can hurt you, can hurt others, can

hurt eventual children in the future. And while our cultures and

our societies are really emphasizing not only mixing but

trading off of relationships from one after the other. We are asked

to be a special, unique group of people, a group of people who

enjoins what is right and good and wholesome and healthy, and pushes

away and stands away from all that which is ugly and immoral and

unhealthy, both for us individually, for our societies

and for our progeny. So while it may seem like this is a silly

thing, I'm just out with my friends and I'm just goofing

around, and you may feel like that doesn't affect the rest of the

society, we need to recognize that each individual makes up the

society. So if each individual can work together and build a healthy

society through healthy and professional interactions between

boys and girls, men and women, male and female, healthy

interactions that include respect, then we will have a better

society, and that's what Muslims have been called on to build.