Q104 :What is the Islamic view on
co-education?
A104 : There is a well-known principle in Islamic
law, which may be rendered in translation as “prevention of means.”
This applies to any situation or condition which may be permissible in
the first instance, but is calculated to lead to something forbidden.
If it is generally deemed that there is a direct relationship between
the original, permissible situation and the resulting forbidden one,
then the original situation is pronounced as forbidden. That is
prohibition of something which is acknowledged to be permissible in the
first instance, because of the results it produces. In other words,
should the circumstances change and the situation in question is deemed
not to lead to the forbidden act, then it can no longer be pronounced
as forbidden. Co-education is one such matter. In the first instance,
there is no harm in a group of people, men and women, or boys and
girls, to be present in a classroom where a teacher is giving a lesson,
provided that everyone behaves properly, abiding by Islamic standards
of propriety. But when we put together a group of young boys and girls,
close to the period of adolescence, and during adolescence, in the
relaxed environment of a school where they meet and play, then it is
asking too much of such young people to observe Islamic standards of
morality. The results may be very serious indeed. Therefore, we say
that co-education is unacceptable to Islam, because of what it leads
to, not because of the process of teaching or of the meeting of the two
sexes in a classroom.
Our Dialogue ( Source : Arab News – Jeddah )