It all depends. There are certain girls whose parents know that they have a complete control over them and no harm can come their way even if they are trusted to go and study with male students and they can observe further too. For example, one girl was sent from Multan, Pakistan, to study in Oxford and she was a science student, she did her degree or doctorate in solid state and all through she observed further and she guarded herself. She was one of the Mohsanaat.
Mohsana means the one who is capable of guarding herself. So in that case, there is absolutely no objection for that girl to study in any university. But if that girl is weak and the parents know better, if she is liable to be influenced wrongly by that child, then it will be very dangerous to send that girl and to cry out, then it will be very dangerous to send that girl and to cry later on, it would be too late then. So you should not put weight beyond one’s capacity. This is the fundamental rule.
If the children, even if it’s a male child, is sent to conditions where it’s too much for him to resist and he is yet in a formative stage, then it will be destroying your own son with your own hands. So it’s not a question of male or female. It’s applicable equally to every situation. Like Akbar, for example, a poet, Urdu poet, a very renowned Urdu poet, he sent his son to England and after a while that son lost his bearing completely and he changed his values, his concepts about life, everything. And he, Akbar, when he came to know it, wrote a letter, wrote a long poem addressing him. I remember a few verses. He says that, Mom ki putliyon par aisi tabiyat pigli, chaman-e-hind ki pariyon ki adaab gul gaye, khaak-e-makroni seviyon ka mazaab gul gaye.
So it was a very interesting long poem telling him that you have changed your values. So that son was also the son of the same father, you know, a capable father. Such a father, such a son. So he answered him in just one verse. He wrote back to him, borrowing that verse from some Persian poet, that zarmayane taare darya, takhta bandham kar de, baaz bhi goi ki damantar makon husyar bhaash, that you have bound me hand and foot on a board and flown me to the mercy of ocean waves and now you warn me, beware, you should not wet your clothes. Beware of it. Impossible. He said you have created this situation, you are responsible for this. So this is a very good incident for you to take lesson.
