What is the ruling on shaking hands with elderly women?
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
May Allah reward you, Honorable Shaykh. A questioner says: If a person is compelled to greet an elderly woman with his hand, is it permissible for him to greet her by shaking her hand, since this is one of the customs of our country?
Answer:
No, never. A woman does not shake hands. A non-mahram woman does not shake hands, whether she is elderly or not. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) did not take the pledge of allegiance from women except by words. His hand never touched the hand of a woman who was not lawful for him to marry; he only took the pledge from women by words.
May Allah reward you, Honorable Shaykh. A questioner says: If a person is compelled to greet an elderly woman with his hand, is it permissible for him to greet her by shaking her hand, since this is one of the customs of our country?
Answer:
No, never. A woman does not shake hands. A non-mahram woman does not shake hands, whether she is elderly or not. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) did not take the pledge of allegiance from women except by words. His hand never touched the hand of a woman who was not lawful for him to marry; he only took the pledge from women by words.
Source
قناة «العلامة الدكتور صالح الفوزان»، [3436/1495] ما حكم مصافحة النساء الكبيرات في السن؟ - الشيخ صالح الفوزان — youtube.com
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.