The ruling on the seclusion of a suitor with his fiancée before the marriage contract

Question:
What is the relationship of a suitor who has not yet contracted marriage with his fiancée, given that they are in a country of travel? We often observe that there is seclusion between the suitor and the fiancée before there is a contract. Please guide the Muslims regarding this issue. May Allah reward you with good.

Answer:
In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful. Praise be to Allah, Lord of the worlds. As for the relationship of the suitor with his fiancée before the contract, it is like his relationship with all other women who are foreign to him. It is forbidden for him to be alone with her, or to travel with her, or for her to travel with him, or any other cause that leads to fitnah (trial, discord or temptation). The fact that he has proposed to her does not make it permissible for him to be alone with her, or to travel with her, or for her to reveal to him any part of her face or hands, or anything that is not permissible to reveal to other men who are not among her mahram (a relative one may not marry), because she remains a foreigner to him and remains forbidden to him. What some people do, influenced by the disbelievers, where the suitor is alone with his fiancée, travels with her, and takes from her what is not permissible, all of this is what the religion of Islam has forbidden. The Lawgiver only granted a dispensation to the suitor who hopes for his proposal to be accepted, allowing him to see of her what would make him desire to marry her, such as seeing her face or some of her extremities. He should not expand beyond this, but only to the extent that makes him desire her or makes him desire to leave her. This should be done in the presence of her wali (the bride's guardian), and it should be done when she is unaware, meaning he waits for her or hides from her, and looks at what makes him desire her, or what convinces him to leave her. This is what the Lawgiver permitted. As for going beyond that by doing what is done in the lands of the disbelievers, where the suitor takes from his fiancée everything that Allah the Exalted and Majestic has forbidden, this is a matter of the jahiliyyah (the pre-Islamic age of ignorance) and the customs of the disbelievers. It is not permissible for Muslims to approve of it or to act upon it. The conclusion is that the suitor is a foreigner and the fiancée is a foreigner, and there is no relationship between them except through the Shari'ah contract that permits him from her what is permitted for a husband from his wife, the Shari'ah contract in which its conditions and pillars are fulfilled. Before the contract, each of them is a foreigner to the other. Yes.