His daughter is in a relationship with her relative through chat and e-mail only; how should he deal with this problem?

Question: 171334

My daughter is 16 and she has been chatting with a relative who is 3 years elder than her. They insist that they are good friends and that they treat each other as siblings. My daughter is not the kind of girl who talks to guys freely. He is the only guy she has been talking to. She feels comfortable talking to him. They share secrets too. Is this wrong? And the relative she is talking to is not in the same country. He is overseas. So they cant meet. They dont talk on the phone too. They just email each other everyday. And chat once im a while. My daughter tells him everything. He tells her everything too. Even though he is overseas he will be well informed about her where abouts. They trust each other alot. As a parent me a teenage daughter. Im afraid this might leed to unexpected consequences. Im afraid they might become too devoted to each other and might want to spend the rest of their life together. I mean im afraid they might fall im love. They have been talking for two and a half years now. I always thought they will stop. But i dont think they will. Is this right?.

Praise be to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon the Messenger of Allah and his family.

The fact is that you have delayed too long in asking about
your problem and taking a firm stance concerning it.

It is true that the matter – praise be to Allah – has not
reached an alarming stage as happens with many such relationships, but it
has taken the first step on which what comes after is built. What we mean by
that is the step of establishing the relationship between the two parties.
The fact that they are at this age and are still young could lead to this
relationship developing in the wrong direction.

We are not concerned about looking at the content of this
chat which cannot possibly, based on the nature of the situation, remain
innocent and be limited to discussion of religion, politics, and so on. We
do not need to look at the content of this chat and whether this
relationship has reached anything that may be regarded as haraam. The
relationship itself from the outset is haraam in and of itself. No
relationship between two young people at this age can remain within the
boundaries of innocence; rather it will inevitably develop into an emotional
(romantic) relationship the extent of which and what it may lead to cannot
be known except by Allah. The Prophet (blessings and peace of Allah be upon
him) said: “No one of you is alone with a woman but the Shaytaan is the
third one present.” Narrated by Ahmad (114) and others; classed as saheeh by
al-Albaani.

According to the nature of the relationship and the extent to
which their conversation is private, the Shaytaan will base his hopes of
tempting them to commit immoral actions.

We have previously spoken of the ruling on correspondence
between the sexes in several answers. See for example the answer the
questions no. 26890 and
93450.

What you have to do now is to stop your daughter continuing
with this haraam relationship before it reaches the stage that it will be
difficult to stop it.

Start by explaining the shar‘i ruling concerning that to your
daughter and tell her that it is not permissible for her to continue with
this relationship.

If he is serious about his relationship with her, then it is
possible to make it a legitimate relationship by means of marriage, if they
both want that and he is a suitable match for her; otherwise what is the
point of continuing with it?!

And Allah knows best.

Source:

Islam Q&A

Was this answer helpful?