Question: What is the ruling on attending training sessions which have free-mixing between men and women?
Answer: “If a necessity calls for that, then there is no harm, along with avoiding communicating with women and looking at them with desire”*.
[‘Ilaam ul-Musaafireen pg. 86]
* Translator’s Note:
With that being said, the Shaikh’s final view on the issue of attending free-mixing schools or areas is that it is prohibited. The following is the last fatwa the Shaikh gave on the issue, which was a few months before he passed away rahimahullah.
He was asked:
Question: What is the ruling on studying medicine in a free-mixing university. Is this considered a Legislated need?
Answer: “This is not a Legislated need. It is obligatory upon those responsible of the Islamic country to separate between the men and women because free-mixing is an issue. If the people stopped entering into studies, enrolling in universities, and what resembles that of free-mixing, it would force the ruler to distinguish and separate. I see that it is not allowed to have free-mixing in medicine and nor other than it.
Questioner: Even in the Legislated Sciences?
Answer: “Even in the Legislated Sciences except if the women gather in a [separate] place, which they enter from a [separate] door and exit from a [separate] door and there is no free-mixing with men”.
[Tape: Kalimah ila Du’aat al-Jazaair recorded 23 Safar 1421 found here: aloloom.net/vb/showthread.php?t=14870]
Translated by
Faisal Ibn Abdul Qaadir Ibn Hassan
Abu Sulaymaan
