What is the ruling on a man kissing his brother?

The questioner : May Allah reward you with good. We found that the hadiths regarding a man kissing his companion, which are mentioned in *Riyad al-Salihin*, have weakness in their chains. Many of the students said that the Shaykh approved of that for us and did not deny it, so this indicates its permissibility. We ask for clarification.

The Shaykh : No, there is no general statement from me in *Riyad al-Salihin* weakening all the hadiths of kissing. Rather, I mentioned in *Silsilat al-Ahadith al-Sahihah* the hadith of Anas ibn Malik, which al-Tirmidhi and others narrated, in which a man asked the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), and he said: I had mentioned in this hadith, and perhaps the doubt arose from here: an addition in some of the chains. The questioner asked, "Does he have to shake hands?" He said: ... When I reviewed all the chains of this hadith, which I strengthened by their collective weight, I did not find support for this specific addition, "Does he have to shake hands?" I did not find anything to support it or strengthen it. So I wrote in the margin of my book, in preparation for the second edition, that this addition should be deleted. As for the prohibition of kissing, it is established by the collective weight of the chains, although this too is treated as an absolute and qualified ruling. That is, kissing occurred in some circumstances, such as the permissibility of kissing the hand sometimes, in the case of a learned and virtuous man. So whoever attributes to me that I weakened the hadith of kissing absolutely is certainly mistaken, either on my part if I weakened it, or on the part of the one who attributed the weakening to me. In my opinion, he confused the prohibition of kissing with the prohibition of shaking hands. As for shaking hands, as I told you, we did not find a corroborating narration for it, so it remains on the original ruling. As for kissing, the prohibition is established, except for what is excluded. Among the exclusions is a son kissing his father, or the reverse, a father kissing his son or daughter, let alone what I mentioned earlier regarding kissing the hand of a righteous man.