[NEWyear]

In the Name of Allah, the Merciful, the Powerful

Assalamu `Alaykum.

Dear Honest Student,

Sidi, you wrote:

> "2246 The safer legal position is that the man should try his best
not > to touch an unrelated woman (even casually)
> who is not his wife."
>
> The safer legal position? I thought this was the ONLY legal position?
> Isn't there 'ijma that you cannot touch an unrelated woman who is not
> your wife (not include necessary times)?

Touching is of various types and there would be difference about
the extremely casual type of touching, such as "palm-taps" (the two
people join the underside of the fingers or palm for a second or two
as a greeting) which have been prevalent in North Africa between the
genders for many centuries now up from the very beginning of Islam
reaching this part of the world without major and pronounced disavowal
from the main knowledge centers.

As a person learns more and travels more, one realizes that the issues
with absolute ijmaa` are not that many and those that have absolute
ijmaa` (for an issue like this) would need more qualifying details,
such
as the age difference between the two people and the absolute
undeniablity
of the touching being for sensual purposes.

> I was always of the impression that it was "agreed upon by the 4
legal
> schools." So does that mean that in enjoining the good and forbidding
> the evil we DO or DO NOT tell a Muslim to not touch an unrelated
woman?

We would recommend books such as Bidayatu l-mujtahid, al-qawanin
al-fiqh-
hiiyah, and al-Mughni by Ibn Qudama (which list the points of ijmaa`)
to
point you in the correct direction and make you realize that many
closed-
minded people today who appear to be (externally) religious (and rigid)
do themselves harm (in respect to their standing with Allah and their
position in the next life) by speaking authoritatively about the din in
blanket statements which they are not qualified nor learned enough to
utter - and Allah has told us not to speak about Him or His din without
solid knowledge.

Then, we would instruct these people who claim ijmaa` on such an issue
to demonstrate the clear prohibition/command which is contained in the
Qur'an (about the issue) or the *mutawatir* (4 or more independent
chains) and authenticated hadith which contain the prohibition/command.
And (since we know about the primary texts which deal with this
issue), we state that they will not be able to fulfill this requirement
-
and whenever this requirement is not fulfilled, it opens the door
to various differences in branch rulings.

The recommended position on this issue has already been narrated by
us in the Explanatory Notes of the Guiding Helper in the footnote
you quoted.



Wassalamu `alaykum wa rahmatullah

Abuqanit Hasani
Main Author



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