Answer
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.
In this fatwa:
It stands to reason that having a girlfriend is not the manner of a Muslim. It is forbidden for a male Muslim to have a girlfriend, as it is forbidden for a female Muslim to have a boyfriend.
Tackling this point in details, Dr. Muzzammil Siddiqi, Former President of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) states:
Muslims should have good relations with all people, males as well as females, at school, at work, in neighborhood, etc. You should be kind and courteous to everyone.
However, it is not allowed in Islam to take a non-mahram person or persons of the opposite gender as a very close friend. Such friendship often leads to haram.
In the Qur’an, Allah mentioned that good men and women are those who marry, do not have fornicating relationships and do not have “paramours” or Akhdan see An-Nisaa’ 4: 25, Al-Ma’idah 5:5).
Akhdan are “sweethearts” or for a man a “mistress” and for a woman a “lover”.
The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) is reported to have stated that “whenever two strangers of the opposite gender are alone with each other, Satan becomes the third one between them.” (At-Tirmidhi)
So, it is not allowed for a Muslim boy to have a girlfriend or for a Muslim girl to have a boyfriend.
Howsoever pure your intentions may be, the danger is that it will lead you to sin. Or at least you will be alone with each other and spend more time together.
Thus, you should be friendly with your classmates, boys and girls both; but do not take a girl as your intimate friend.
Of course, homosexuality is also forbidden in Islam. So, do not take a boy either as your intimate friend in the “gay sense” of the word.
If your friend, not your girlfriend, is interested in Islam, by all means help her to become Muslim. Give her the Islamic books and ask her to attend Islamic meetings and lectures. Let her accept Islam by her own will. Do not force her or put any pressure on her to become Muslim. May Allah bless you and keep you on the right path.
Allah the Almighty knows best.
Editor’s note: This fatwa is from Ask the Scholar’s archive and was originally published at an earlier date.