An Iraqi friend that Becky and I see often sent me an interesting email a few days ago. The gist of his email was that he could no longer shake Becky’s hand when he greets her. Before you jump to conclusions, dear reader, I should say that the reason for this no-handshake rule is not that Becky has angered our friend or that she has a communicable disease or that our friend is simply unfriendly. He is very polite and friendly and we love to be with him and his family. It is that someone told our friend that since he is a Shia Muslim he is not permitted to shake hands with or touch a woman who is not his wife.
Now, that interested me. So, I replied to his email. After assuring my friend that Becky would not be offended by this change, I asked him why he was not permitted to shake a woman’s hand. Was that a rule in his holy book that he believed came from God? Or, was it a rule that his people and culture had fashioned? I wrote that I was wondering by whose or by what authority he was not permitted to shake a woman’s hand.
He replied that it was not a rule that their Iraqi culture had made, but was a religious rule that came from their prophet. He wants to please God and remain pure in his thoughts, he intimated. Of course, while this is not a rule that I feel the need to practice, I respect my friend’s right to live by his beliefs, and I admire his motivation for doing so.
Still, I think my question is a legitimate one for my friend and for all of us. It’s a question our Lord once asked of the religious leaders of his day. “By what authority are you doing these things?” (Mk. 11:29). Are the rules we try to live by of human origin or did heaven authorize them? I think that is a significant question.
