We reply: Certainly not. An airplane is in fact more dangerous than other modes of travel. The passengers are mixed; she may find herself seated next to a man. The flight itself might be diverted to another airport, leaving her without anyone to meet her and thus exposed to peril. What will a woman do in a country she does not know, with no maḥram to protect her?
[Among the means of safeguarding chastity is the ban on seclusion between a woman and any man who is not her maḥram]
- One such means is to prohibit khalwa—seclusion—between a woman and a man who is not her maḥram. The Prophet ﷺ said, “Whoever believes in Allah and the Last Day must not be alone with a woman unless she is accompanied by one of her maḥrams, for the third of them is Satan.” ʿĀmir ibn Rabīʿah narrated that the Messenger of Allah ﷺ said, “Hear me well: no man may be alone with a woman who is unlawful to him, for the third of them is Satan—unless a maḥram is present.” Al-Majd remarked in al-Muntaqā that both reports were transmitted by Aḥmad, and their purport has already appeared in the agreed-upon narration from Ibn ʿAbbās.
Imām al-Shawkānī writes in Nayl al-Aṭār (6/120): “The scholars are unanimously agreed that seclusion with a non-maḥram woman is forbidden, as al-Ḥāfiẓ related in Fatḥ al-Bārī. The reason, as the hadith states, is that Satan becomes the third of them, driving them toward sin. When a maḥram is present, however, seclusion is permissible because the possibility of sin is removed by his presence.” End quote.
Yet some women—and their guardians—take this matter lightly in various situations of khalwa, such as:
a) A woman being alone with her husband’s male relative and uncovering her face in his presence. This