without a third person present, it is forbidden by the unanimous agreement of the scholars; likewise, if the “third person” is a child so young that one would not feel shy before him, the unlawful seclusion is not lifted.

C. Some women—and the guardians responsible for them—take matters lightly by allowing a woman to enter upon a male physician on the pretext that she needs medical treatment. This is a serious wrong and a grave danger; it may neither be condoned nor passed over in silence.

Shaykh Muḥammad b. Ibrāhīm said in Majmūʿ al-Fatāwā (10/13): “In any circumstance, seclusion with an unrelated woman is forbidden by the Sharīʿah, even for the physician who is treating her, because of the ḥadīth, ‘No man ever sits in seclusion with a woman but that Satan is the third of them.’ Someone must therefore be present with her—her husband or one of her male maḥrams. If that is not possible, then a female relative may attend; and if none of the foregoing is available and the illness is life-threatening and cannot be postponed, then at the very least a nurse or the like must be present, in order to avoid the prohibited seclusion.” End quote.

Likewise, it is impermissible for a male doctor to be alone with an unrelated woman, whether she is a fellow female doctor or a nurse; for a blind (or sighted) teacher to be alone with a female student; or for a stewardess on an aircraft to be alone with a man who is a stranger to her. People have grown lax concerning these matters in the name of counterfeit “modernity,” blind imitation of the unbelievers, and indifference toward the rulings of the Sharīʿah. There is no power and no might except with Allah, the Most High, the Almighty.