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I received a copy of the Qur'an from a Muslim girl at a booth while I was at University, I said thank you and offered my hand for a handshake, but she refused it, which made me feel really awkward. She told me that girls don't shake hands with men. Why is this?

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    Old culture and traditions? Or maybe an extreme interpretation of "lower your gaze"? For me, its a simple gesture to greet or congratulate someone (based on western culture). I find nothing wrong with a handshake (or even a hug) of opposite genders.
    – user921
    Apr 25, 2015 at 16:22
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    Related or duplicate: islam.stackexchange.com/q/17640/3487 and islam.stackexchange.com/q/5487/3487
    – Bleeding Fingers
    Apr 25, 2015 at 17:27
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    Just to be clear, it's not just about women not shaking hands with men. The same applies to men with women.
    – Ansari
    Apr 27, 2015 at 21:19
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    Is this question really a duplicate of the above?! This is asking for why not "whether or not"!
    – infatuated
    Feb 15, 2016 at 15:57
  • Yeah, as@infatuated remarked, This user is asking for why not "whether or not"! . Actually it can be answered based on the reasons (its negative effects on them) as well as the Quran and hadiths which mentioning it is haram.
    – اللهم صل علی محمد و آل محمد
    Mar 8, 2016 at 6:38

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The reason is the same, it is to be on a safer side from falling prone to... 'falling prone to' sin. The more cautious you are, the more safer it is. And if you find it strange and confused, then it is your culture which made you get accustomed with such a thing. But, for a girl who wishes to be on a safer side, she prefers to the follow rules.

May the creator guide us all.

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  • But isn't this presupposing that a 'handshake' is dangerous to begin with? I mean I don't get the "be on the safe side" when a handshake is inherently a greeting. Don't you think that this is a little bit extreme in today's society and could easily be changed if the community got together? Are you really saying that a handshake is dangerous?
    – user921
    Apr 27, 2015 at 14:35
  • Well it depends on how the person is accustomed to that sort of behavior. If the person is new to hand shaking, then it might cause problem, but if both the people are well acquainted with that behavior, then there might be no problem. But, it is better to be safe. And, forcing one into hand shaking, who is not accustomed to, telling "Oh Come On! It's just a greeting" is not a good idea.
    – servant-of-Wiser
    May 22, 2015 at 10:18
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    This better-to-be-safe attitude has turned almost every form of contact between men and women sexual. It has grown so much worse that even a glimpse of seemingly harmless uncovered skin (e.g., eyes, hands, feet) is source of arousal. With such ultra conservative attitude you are only causing more moral degradation and destruction of societies to live up to their potential.
    – Tom Marvolo Riddle
    Feb 10, 2016 at 7:40
  • @TomMarvoloRiddle should such a thing occur, there is a relevant Hadith describing a remedy for it.
    – servant-of-Wiser
    Feb 10, 2016 at 7:59
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    The woman advances and retires in the shape of a devil, so when one of you sees a woman, he should come to his wife, for that will repel what he feels in his heart. Wow! I was only taking about sexualization of all man/woman contact, and you came up with a Hadith where the woman itself has been reduced to merely a sexual object. I simply cannot fathom how one can overlook the apparent misogyny of this so-called Hadith. May be our fathers and fore-fathers were slave to the divinity of Bukhair and Muslim, but we aren't. We have to reject their path if its found out to be illogical and false.
    – Tom Marvolo Riddle
    Feb 10, 2016 at 12:10
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According to Islam, human sexuality and all of it expressions are meant to serve exclusively one sacred purpose: family life and its essential functions such as reproduction. Therefore Muslim men and women are required to avoid any situation or action that might possibly funnel any of the physical or physiological expressions of their sexuality into areas outside married life. That's why women are enjoined to cover their body outside home and act modestly to reduce to zero the chance of sexually attracting stranger men during their social interactions. This guarantees marital loyalty and prevents human sexuality to operate in ways other than its fore-mentioned sacred legitimate function.

The reason why this practice seems strange nowadays to most is because of the dominant secular culture of our time. Indeed nowadays the modern man has declined spiritually and morally so low to be not only blind to the sacred foundations of our nature and practical implications thereof, but has even perverted into normalizing and legalizing such obscene practices as nudity, homosexuality and pornography as in the so called Sexual Revolution of the 1970s.

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    There's a down-vote. I'd appreciate hearing the reason for any negative feedback.
    – infatuated
    Apr 28, 2015 at 8:08
  • You have it all wrong IMO. Frequently we come across porn consumption statistics of different societies and most of the time they show that porn consumption is very high in conservative societies. Nobody wants to imitate the sexual revolution in west, but with such mindset you are pushing people to even worse form of depravations, e.g., incest, pedophilia, bestiality and even necrophilia.
    – Tom Marvolo Riddle
    Feb 10, 2016 at 7:47
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    @TomMarvoloRiddle, The connection you're making between my idea and your observation is not really valid, and it actually leads to a bizarre conclusion: encouraging marital fidelity and modest conduct and dress code lead to their exact opposites, sexual depravities! In truth, there are other reasons for the relative high rate of porn consumption in some of these so-called "conservative" countries. The historical plague of colonization, war and globalization, and the resulting social breakdown and/or cultural contamination in these countries come to mind.
    – infatuated
    Feb 10, 2016 at 11:06
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    You are first creating a perception that women are nothing but sexual objects. They are so full of sexual-invitation that even a mere handshake can lure men into forgetting his responsibilities towards his family. To stop that we have to force in him Islamic moderation and wisdom. The problems that are to be solved by this wisdom were created by another wisdom which reduced women to only sexual beings link.
    – Tom Marvolo Riddle
    Feb 15, 2016 at 14:47
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    @TomMarvoloRiddle, I'm not creating that said perception! That's obviously your impression! I also didn't suggest that a handshake might have an immediate fatal consequence, again that's your impression of what I wrote. You seem to share a common misconception that an action is wrong if only it leads to some widely catastrophic consequence otherwise it is permissible. But in Islam, we are recommended to avoid wrong acts no matter how small their immediate observable consequence.
    – infatuated
    Feb 15, 2016 at 15:37

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