Re: Hanging out with men?
No one has the right to judge you for what you do. Not even those “village-mentality” Mom’s. But you also don’t have the right to start making up your own Islamic rules to fit your life. Just because you do something in your personal life, doesn’t mean you say it’s okay to do Islamically. Your not going to sit there and say that you have more knowledge then then Islamic scholors/mufti’s who spend 10+ studying the laws of Islam.
Talking before getting married to someone is to see how compatible you are to one another for marriage, not so you can be friends.
So the “village-mentality” Mum’s may just be trying to raise pious children and to teach them right from wrong ISLAMICALLY.
There is a authenic hadith that says “when a man and woman are alone, the third person amonst them in shaytaan”.
I don’t mean to bash on you, but I don’t think people should go around and say whatever in regards of a Religion because our words misguide others.