When an adult man addresses an adult woman respectfully and generically as Sister, and later they mutually consent to marry, they aren't hurting anybody or deceiving Allah. Far from ruining Islam's image, they are living according to Islamic doctrine.
You can refer to Quran 33:4 and 33:37 - divorcing a woman by calling her "my mother" doesn't make her the ex-husband's mother, and calling Zayd "son" didn't make Muhammad guilty for marrying his own adoptive daughter-in-law (Barra "Zaynab" bint Jahsh).
Also, Sahih al-Bukhari 5081: Abu Bakr saying that his "brother" Muhammad was too closely related to marry Aisha, and Muhammad replying, "You are my brother in Allah's religion and His book," didn't make Aisha unlawful for Muhammad. Abu Bakr allowing his "brother" to see his daughter explains why Muhammad was able to recognize Aisha before marriage when an angel unveiled her, Sahih al-Bukhari 7012.
A Muslim friend of my family (who would be over 100 years old if he were alive today) once told me proudly, "My wife is my paternal uncle's daughter. I used to visit and give candies to my cousins, and take them out for rides in my car, because we were family. Then, when she was sixteen, and I was twenty-six, I asked our grandfather to let me marry her."
This girl (now a woman in her nineties) didn't wear hijab, and neither did her mother (fifteen years older than she), but simply because her cousin was trusted to chaperone her, their sibling relationship turned into marriage before she was fully grown up.
One can imagine that the more strictly a community enforces hijab, the more likely it is that sexual interest will find its focus within one's own family at an early age. That concerns me more than a polite greeting between consenting adults.
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