Women Working With Decent and Honourable Men
A Muslim sister once wrote, “Many of us have had the good fortune to live with (and to have been raised by and work with) decent and honourable men.”
When our beloved prophet Muhammad (may the peace and blessings of Allah be upon him) said: “I have not left behind me any fitnah (temptation) more harmful to men than women,” he was referring to all types of men: the honourable ones as well as the dishonourable ones.
It is a mistake to think that slipping up when dealing with the temptation of women is something that only dishonourable men can do. Men and women who work together in close proximity and over long periods of time are literally playing with smokeless fire as they are underestimating Shaytan.
Even if on the outside it seems like the relationship is purely platonic, only the people involved really understand the effects of it on their marital life at home. We hear about the trouble caused when spouses compare each other to Muslims in the public eye such as dawah carriers, imams and scholars, thinking that their spouse falls short when compared to them. This is the case even when we are aware that what we see on our screens is a polished, well-groomed, well-spoken version of an individual whose day to day life we have no knowledge of. Accordingly, we are far more likely to make comparisons with those we work with and who have far more opportunities to show us that they can be kinder, more attentive, more invested, more sensitive and more considerate than our spouses.
And then there's the issue of what is deeply hidden: the nafs and what it whispers to the individuals involved, which they typically don't reveal to their colleagues.
Also, Allah's Messenger was the most honourable of men, yet he segregated the men and women even in our most holiest of places in which we already fear Allah the most: the masajid, and then he sat amongst the men. As the most honourable of men, he said that he would rather be pricked in the head with an iron needle than to touch a woman who it was forbidden to touch. As the most honourable of men, once when he was sitting with the sahaba and a woman walked by him, he went to one of his wives and when he came back, he told the sahaba that if they had seen what he had seen then they should do as he had done.
In fact, the ayah of the Qur'an in Surah an-Noor asking men to lower their gaze refers to believing men, who are the honourable ones right? So we shouldn't be naive in thinking that it is okay for honourable men (and women) to put themselves in places of fitnah, as they will not be susceptible to falling into it. Nor should we think that if they do slip then they must have been dishonourable to begin with. The many evidences above show that they were revealed to help stop honourable men from falling into sin due to the temptation of women.
Wal-hamdu lillahi rabbil 'alamin (February 2023 originally a comment in response to an article)
Umm Hafab
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