Recordings › Hadith Analysis: Why men and women CAN shake hands -Mufti Abu Layth · 4 May 2018 › Segment 4 of 4
Should I refuse to shake hands with the opposite sex where it is the custom?
hadeeth ahadith ahaadeeth hadis hadees ahaadith qadi ayyad qadi iyaad al-qadi iyad 'urf fatwah fatawa fatwaa fataawa legal opinion haraam forbidden sunna sunnat sunan prophetic practice ikhtilaaf khilaf scholarly disagreement koran quraan al-quran ayah aya ayat ayaat aayah aayat hifz hafidh haafiz hifdh huffaz hafiza memorisation ulema ulamaa shaykh sheikh shaikh sheik shuyukh mehram maharim mahaarimHow scholars answered the Umm Haram report, and Mufti Abu Layth's view: follow your convention and choose your battles
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This segment9:10 to 12:26 · 3 min 16 sGeneral teaching
What this part covers
machinesummary, machine-writtenFollow the convention you are in: where people do not shake hands, do not; where they do, you may act on the fatwa of the scholars who permit it, since no clear verse or hadith forbids it. Losing citizenship over a handshake was not a battle worth choosing.
In more detail
Mufti Abu Layth reports how scholars tried to answer the Umm Haram report: Ibn Abd al-Barr suggested she was a foster sister of the Prophet, which later scholars such as al-Hafiz al-Dimyati [?] tore apart by going through the lineages, showing a relation too distant to make her a mahram; Qadi Iyad suggested it was specific to the Prophet (khususiyya), which others problematised, and Ibn Hajar in Fath al-Bari writes that the report shows the permissibility of a guest napping at people's homes and of a woman who is not his mahram serving him, inclining to the view that she was unrelated. Some scholars therefore said there was nothing wrong in it since it was not sexual, while most tried to make it specific to the Prophet; these evidences are used by the shaykhs of al-Azhar, al-Qaradawi [?], Ahmad al-Tayyib [?], the European fatwa council and Bin Bayyah. Mufti's own understanding is that one goes with one's convention: where people do not shake hands one does not, and he would go with the general ulama, but he highlights that this fatwa exists and that where it is the convention one may act on it. He asks whether it was wise for the woman to make a battle of this to the point of losing her citizenship, not that the French were right, when so many ulama say there is no clear verse or hadith making it haram and there is ikhtilaf; Muslims, he says, need to choose their battles wisely.
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Position stated
His own understanding is that one follows the convention of one's society: where people do not shake hands one does not, following the general ulama, but where it is the convention one may act on the fatwa of the scholars who permit it, since, as many ulama say, no clear verse or hadith makes it haram, and Muslims should choose their battles wisely.
“my own understanding is look you go with your conventions okay so if you're in a convention where people don't do this you you don't do this”
Category: ruling
Kind: general teachingTranscript
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now all the yelled brings a lot of these narrations in the Shiva and then obviously the huge conundrum of how do we answer this so scholars have really struggled massively to answer that and what's interesting is even after Bart tried to say maybe she was like a foster sister of the Prophet through this foster relationship and later scholars like halfway the dome yachty really go out tearing that argument saying this is nonsense because how could have she been a foster sister and he goes through the
whole the kind of chains of the lineage showing that she wasn't she was related as such a distant but that didn't make her a Muharram but what's interesting is cause the ER says that we'll look maybe this is hosue SIA right this is specific with the Prophet but then this is problematized by some people saying how could it what even a hogr writes infertile body that were fee he Josue callate wife that this hadith shows the permissibility of a guest to stay and kind of take a nap with people
and he says even Raja was a hit man and having people a woman serving him who is not his Maharaja was a kid my telomere until a jina ble life be a Tommy he or what some he'd Lihue and preparations for him and then he goes on to say well and here we've got but he mentions a Jinnah BIA so he even inclines to the fact that she was not related to the Prophet so then some scholars said well that's because it was not a doing this is not a kind of there's nothing wrong with this and it wasn't a kind of in any way like a sexual thing it's just general
just helping and but most the scholars kind of tried to eat know how did you try to say well maybe it was just specific with the Prophet then but these evidences have been used by a lot of these Shu Havel Azhar by people like our bar we by Cher Ahmed Rajib by the fatwa forum for Islamic forum of a Europe the Islamic fatwa Council of Europe sorry my shelf in bayer by all these kind of people that are highlighted what I would say is that look if you're in a situation if you're in a convention my own understanding is look you go with your conventions okay so if you're in a convention where people don't do this
you you don't do this so I would go with the general ala ma but I would highlight I look this fatwa is this so if you're in a convention where people do this you can take this fatwa and you can act according to it so you just need to choose your battles like on one hand was it really wise for the woman to make to make this such a battle to lose her citizenship over not that the French were right in doing so but her making this such a battle when so many ala ma said look there isn't actually even a clear verse of the Quran or a hadith clear Sunnah saying it's Haram and there's all this esta laughs like I'm
just saying I think sometimes as Muslims we need to choose our battles wisely
Paragraphs overlapping 9:10 to 12:26. Full text on the recording page.
Cite this segment
Stable id, transcript version and tier are part of the citation. Every change to a transcript is logged.Mufti Abu Layth Archive, segment 2018-05-04-S04, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/h8sxk-2-w-4/s/4/ (accessed 1 November 2026)
- APA 7
Mufti Abu Layth. (2018, May 4). Should I refuse to shake hands with the opposite sex where it is the custom? [Video, segment 2018-05-04-S04, auto-transcribed, may contain errors]. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Retrieved November 1, 2026, from https://muftiabulayth.org/r/h8sxk-2-w-4/s/4/
- Chicago author-date
Mufti Abu Layth. 2018. "Should I refuse to shake hands with the opposite sex where it is the custom?" Video, segment 2018-05-04-S04, auto-transcribed, may contain errors. Mufti Abu Layth Archive. Recorded May 4, 2018. Accessed November 1, 2026. https://muftiabulayth.org/r/h8sxk-2-w-4/s/4/
- BibTeX
@misc{abulayth-2018-05-04-S04, author = {Mufti Abu Layth}, title = {{Should I refuse to shake hands with the opposite sex where it is the custom?}}, year = {2018}, month = {5}, date = {2018-05-04}, howpublished = {\url{https://muftiabulayth.org/r/h8sxk-2-w-4/s/4/}}, url = {https://muftiabulayth.org/r/h8sxk-2-w-4/s/4/}, organization = {Mufti Abu Layth Archive}, urldate = {2026-11-01}, note = {Segment 2018-05-04-S04, auto-transcribed, may contain errors} }
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