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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?

Rebecca J. Stones
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ShemSeger
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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. –  Apr 25 '15 at 16:22
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    Related or duplicate: http://islam.stackexchange.com/q/17640/3487 and http://islam.stackexchange.com/q/5487/3487 – Bleeding Fingers Apr 25 '15 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 '15 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 '16 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 08 '16 at 06:38

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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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servant-of-Wiser
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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? –  Apr 27 '15 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 '15 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 '16 at 07:40
  • @TomMarvoloRiddle should such a thing occur, there is a relevant Hadith describing a remedy for it. – servant-of-Wiser Feb 10 '16 at 07:59
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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 '16 at 12:10
  • This hadith and a lot of other portions of our Saha-i-Sattah are pure filth and need to rejected/discarded/thrown away. – Tom Marvolo Riddle Feb 10 '16 at 12:18
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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.

اللهم صل علی محمد و آل محمد
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infatuated
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    There's a down-vote. I'd appreciate hearing the reason for any negative feedback. – infatuated Apr 28 '15 at 08:08
  • 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 '16 at 07:47
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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 '16 at 11:06
  • Otherwise, I don't see how a muslim youth with a proper Islamic moral upbringing would turn to these inglorious perversions. – infatuated Feb 10 '16 at 11:11
  • Everybody wants to encourage marital fidelity, modesty. But in our societies modesty has been enlarged so much that it has become a tool of suppression. When even a shake of hands is seen as a step towards marital infidelity, it makes apparent the fact that women is a mere sexual object ("who 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"). – Tom Marvolo Riddle Feb 11 '16 at 09:36
  • Our societies are littered with mentally unstable individuals and their behavior come to the fore when a chance present itself. A very recent example is what happened in Köln, Germany, at the new year. Upbringing goes out of the window when an individual lives under constant frustration and suppression. Our societies are sexually ill and reasons are not Colonization et. al. Our Islamic narcissism is not letting us see it. – Tom Marvolo Riddle Feb 11 '16 at 09:43
  • @TomMarvoloRiddle. It is very a multifaceted and extensive topic. So I think we're going to have a lengthy discussion ahead. The question of suppression. There has to be a distinction made between legitimate legal enforcement of Islamic conduct and what would amount to "suppression," which would be a substantial subject in its own right. And I understand the way we emphasize and value different aspects of one's conduct may lead to the kind of perceptions that you mentioned, like "women being sexual objects or lures for Satan." But that's just a wrong perception.... – infatuated Feb 11 '16 at 11:53
  • Fact is, all human beings can do Satan's work by disobeying Divine laws, each gender or class in their own right in relation to their particular attributes. – infatuated Feb 11 '16 at 11:55
  • As for frustration and suppression being a cause for unstable sexual behavior. Well, that itself sounds like the sign of failure in legitimate fulfillment of human desires under Islamic doctrine. If people can fulfill their sexuality with respect to Islamic moderation and wisdom, no frustration or suppression would arise. The problem seems to stem from a social setting that doesn't enable/educate people to properly regulate and moderate different aspects of their life according to Islamic wisdom. – infatuated Feb 11 '16 at 12:08
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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 '16 at 14:47
  • What is really happening is this. Wisdom 2.0 is supposed to solve the problems crated from Wisdom 1.0, and at the same time is also creating more WIsdom 1.0 related. Good luck implementing these wisdoms. One can't ask for a more appropriate example of a chutzpah. – Tom Marvolo Riddle Feb 15 '16 at 14:51
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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 '16 at 15:37
  • The hadith you are taking issue with also doesn't suggest to me that women are "only sexual beings". That's again a misinterpretation. Given the context of the tradition, it is a metaphorical way of explaining possible hazards of interaction with women under the influence of lust. These metaphorical expressions are common in religious injunctions. And we can even get into the esoteric wisdom that underpins the use of parables and metaphors in religion. – infatuated Feb 15 '16 at 15:45