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Fatwa CenterHaving female friends in US and touching
Question
I want to know is it ok if I am in USA and every one have female friends and it is just friends but sometimes touching happens, is it bad?
Answer
All perfect praise be to Allah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allah, and that Muhammad, sallallaahu`alayhi wa sallam, is His slave and Messenger.
What is known nowadays by having a girlfriend is forbidden by Islam. It is a tremendously abominable act. Before Islam, the people used to practice this, but when Islam came this act became unlawful and restrained. Ibn Abbas 
said: 'The people of Jahiliya (pre-Islamic period) were forbidding apparent adultery, but they were permitting hidden acts, saying: ‘what is visible from it (adultery) it is blamed and what is secretly it is all right’. And Allah Almighty revealed in {…come not near to Al-Fawahish (shameful sins, illegal sexual intercourse, etc.) whether committed openly or secretly, …} [Quran 6:151].
Allah prohibits this kind of relationship to men and women. He Says: {…they (the above said captive and slave-girls) should be chaste, not adulterous, nor taking boy-friends. ….} [Quran 4:25] and, regarding the man, He also Says: {…desiring chastity (i.e. taking them in legal wedlock) not committing illegal sexual intercourse, nor taking them as girl-friends. ….} [Quran 5:5].
It is well known that Islam forbids all sexual relationships outside of marriage. Islam doesn't recognize love affairs between two sexes, all those unlawful sexual relationships are tremendous transgressions aside from being a major sin to get sexual satisfaction and privacy for the couple. We find in Hadith narrated by Ibn Abbas who said: “I heard the Messenger of Allah 
saying: It is not allowed to a man to sit with a woman except, with the Mahram”. [Imams Bukhari and Muslim ].
Also Imam Ahmad 
reported that the Prophet said: “Whosever believes in Allah and the Judgment Day, he should not be alone with the woman who is not Mahram because the third is the devil”.
Touching or shaking hands with the woman (who is not Mahram) is a sin and cause of corruption. Narrated by M'aql Ibn Yassar that the Messenger of Allah said: “It is better for one of you to be stabbed with a big iron needle into the head than to touch the woman who is not permissible to him”. [Al-Tabarani and Baihaqi].
But, whoever touches a strange woman without intention it is not a sin and he doesn't enter in the mentioned Prophet's threatening, he should keep away from the places crowded with women.
Allah knows best.
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