Why is it not allowed to shake hands between men and women in Islam?

The aim of this file: not to verify the legal order, but to reach scientific studies that support the preference of not shaking hands for religious reasons

First: the religious subtraction

Sheikh Dr. Yusuf Al-Qaradawi saw it

The permissibility of shaking hands when forced and safe from sedition, as if a man starts and extends his hand, but a woman does not have the right to initiate it. It is better for a Muslim man or woman to refrain from shaking hands in any case, because those who say that it is forbidden are the majority of the nation, and they have strong evidence, It is possible for the compelled of them to imitate those who said that it is permissible in the narrowest limits. Before entering into the research and discussion, I would like to extract two images from the field of dispute.

The first: the prohibition of shaking hands with a woman

if it is associated with sexual desire and pleasure on the part of one of the two parties: the man or the woman, or if there is fear of temptation from behind it in most cases, This is because blocking the pretext for corruption is obligatory, especially if its signs appear, and its causes are prepared. what confirms this is what the scholars mentioned, that if a man touches one of his female tissues, or is alone with her, which is from the permissible section in the first place, it moves to the circle of inviolability if desire is stirred, or sedition is feared, (See: Al-Ikhtiyar Li’l-Mukhtar in Hanafi Fiqh 4/155), especially with the case of the wife’s daughter, mother-in-law, father’s wife, or breast-feeding sister, who do not have in their souls what the mother, daughter, sister, aunt, aunt, or the like.

The Conclusion

Forbidden in one word

For a handshake between the sexes if it is accompanied by lust and enjoyment, or if it is feared that this will happen, then there is no disagreement about its prohibition on the difference between the scholars, Scholars differed concerning what is forbidden and permitted, and the majority of scholars, including the four schools, or rather the eight, are on the prohibition without distinguishing between embarrassment, or anything else. or lust or something else.

Second: the scientific subtraction 

The initial study

Social chemical signals are part of human behavior, but how chemical signals are transmitted from one individual to another is unknown. To ask whether a handshake is used to sample specific social chemical signals, we secretly filmed 271 subjects within a structured greeting event either with or without a handshake.

We found that humans are most likely to switch between the sexes after shaking hands

They Sniff Their Right Hand, and Selectively Increase This Behavior After a handshake, subjects increased their right-handed handshake sniffers by more than 100%. In contrast, after shaking hands, the two sexes sniffed their left hand the subjects increased the sniffing of their left, non-shaking hand by more than 100%, smearing participants with a non-observable odor significantly altered the effects, thus validating their olfactory nature. Thus, handshakes may functionally serve active but subliminal social chemical cues, which likely play a large role in ongoing human behavior. 

Second study

Oxytocin levels rise with holding hands, and hugging - especially together with a therapeutic massage. The cuddle hormone makes us feel close to each other.

Sociologists have shown in many studies over the years that supportive touch can have good results in a number of different areas. Consider the following examples: If a teacher touches a student on the back or arm, that student is more likely to engage the class. The more athletes in the Big Five or hug their teammates, the better their game. Touch makes patients love their doctors more. If you touch a bus driver, he will most likely let you board for free. If the waitress touches the customer's arm or shoulder, she may get a larger tip

But why does a friendly or supportive touch have such comprehensive and positive effects?

What is going on in our brains and bodies that explains this magic?

deep skin

To understand this, we'll start from the outside - with the skin. It's our largest member, covering about 20 square feet, and is about the size of a twin mattress.

If someone touches you, there is pressure pressing against your skin at the point of contact. Beneath the skin are pressure receptors called pachynotic corpuscles, says Tiffany Field, a leading touch researcher and director of the Touch Research Institute at the University of Miami in Florida.

The signals of the basinian corpuscles go directly to an important nerve bundle deep in the brain called the vagus nerve. The vagus is sometimes called the "wanderer" because it has branches that run all over the body to several internal organs, including the heart. The vagus nerve slows down the heart and lowers blood pressure.

Field describes studies in which subjects were asked to perform something stressful, such as public speaking or taking a timed math test. The subjects' partners were also part of the experiment, hugging or holding hands when the researchers asked them to do so.

"They found, in fact, that people who were given this stressful task, if they were holding hands or cuddling, had lower blood pressure and lower heart rates, indicating that they were less stressed," Field says.