[theonsushv]

Bismillah Al-Rehman Al-Raheem

Dear Sister Lorelei:

When I was a child, whenever we were about to visit a home of another, I was told strictly by my parents to not touch anything that was mine. And I didn't, because I did not have the right.

The reason Muslim men did not shake your hand (or of another woman) is because they honor and respect you as a woman and a person who has a right to her dignity, her individual and breathing space, and her self-respect. Also, their hands are not their own but a trust given to them by Allah for touching only those females who are given to them in trust by virtue of either a blood bond like a sister, mother, or child or in the sacred bond of marriage as a wife.

How can they afford to consider the offenses that will be imagined by you or others when the concern that occupies them is the pleasure of Allah? Why should they transgress the bounds of Allah to please any human being?

I was told not to touch anything that was mine by only my parents who raised me, but they (Muslim men) are told not to touch any non-mehram by Allah, their Creator. Why should they be put to shame for obeying their Creator instead of the customs of any culture which change according to times? (Did you not know that in U.K. once doing the same would be an offense, as evidenced by early history of the land?)

Also, science has well proven that men are stimulated by sight but women by touch. How can they (these men) touch you when your husband should have the honor and the right to your person and being instead of any stranger?

No, Sister, they were right not to shake your hand. And you should not hold a grudge in your heart or mind, for the offense was such a beautiful one by will of Allah and for the sake of Allah.

If I have said anything that is good and true, it is from Allah, and anything other than that is my own mistake.