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Is it permissible for a man of sixty-two to spend the night alone in a place with his seventy-year-old paternal aunt's wife, who has been absent from the family for seven years?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

It is not permissible for a man to be alone with a foreign woman, whether they are old or not. This is by agreement of the jurists, due to the generality of the Prophet's (peace be upon him) saying: "No man should be alone with a woman, and no woman should travel except with a mahram."

Al-Nawawi affirmed that a man being alone with a foreign woman is forbidden by agreement of scholars, and he indicated that the terms "man" and "woman" in the hadith include the old man and the young man, and the young woman and the old woman.

Sheikh Ibn Baz issued a fatwa that it is not permissible for a woman to be alone with a man, whether she is old or young, because Satan is the third of them, and the hadith is general and does not exclude the old woman.

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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