The ruling on mahram status due to rescue from peril
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
May Allah reward you. This questioner says, may Allah preserve you: What is the validity of the belief held by some people, especially the common folk, that merely rescuing a woman from peril, such as drowning or burning, establishes mahram status between the woman and the one who rescued her?
Answer:
This is ignorance with no basis, and it is not valid. A man does not become a mahram to her except through kinship or a cause. Kinship means he is her brother, her maternal uncle, or her paternal uncle. A cause means breastfeeding, or affinity, such as if she is his stepdaughter, or if she is the wife of his father, or if she is the wife of his son. As for the mere fact that he rescued her from drowning, this is a common belief with no basis in the Shari'ah, and it is wrong. Yes.
May Allah reward you. This questioner says, may Allah preserve you: What is the validity of the belief held by some people, especially the common folk, that merely rescuing a woman from peril, such as drowning or burning, establishes mahram status between the woman and the one who rescued her?
Answer:
This is ignorance with no basis, and it is not valid. A man does not become a mahram to her except through kinship or a cause. Kinship means he is her brother, her maternal uncle, or her paternal uncle. A cause means breastfeeding, or affinity, such as if she is his stepdaughter, or if she is the wife of his father, or if she is the wife of his son. As for the mere fact that he rescued her from drowning, this is a common belief with no basis in the Shari'ah, and it is wrong. Yes.
Source
نور على الدرب - الفوزان - 02/256 — archive.org (13:06)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.