On Sunday, the Sunday Times reported that a Somali Muslim man lost an award he had been due to receive at a ceremony last Thursday at the Africa Centre in Dublin, Ireland, because he indicated that he would not shake hands with a female presenter (via Islamophobia Watch). The award was for voluntary work - in his case, raising money for Amnesty International - and the awards were "designed to highlight the positive work done by refugees and asylum seekers in Irish communities". As it happens, the paper quotes Mubarak Habib, a project officer at the Africa Centre, as saying that the re-awarding of the prize to someone else, who was not even present, was a mistake unrelated to the original winner's request, and that he would be receiving a joint award. (More: Gorey Muslim Community.)
The fact that an African Muslim's refusal to shake hands with an unrelated female would cause any issues at an Africa Centre sounds suspicious. After all, most of Africa has either a Muslim majority population, or a substantial minority, and this includes Nigeria. The female presenter is one Benedicta Attoh, a Nigerian resident in Dundalk who ran in local elections in 2004. Ms Attoh is quoted as saying, "I don't think I would have presented his prize if he wouldn't shake my hand because I'm a woman". While such an attitude could be understood from an Irish woman who was unfamiliar with these customs, Benedicta Attoh studied at Ahmadu Bello University in Zaria, in northern Nigeria, so it is quite difficult to believe that she would not have known that a practising Muslim man would not have shaken her hand. (Even if she had not gone to the north, I would have thought that an educated Nigerian would know this.)
Metro Éireann, who reported the story in Ireland, noted that the original winner, named Alinoor Ahmed Sheikh, also declined to shake the hand of their female reporter. Their report also said "Muslim sources who spoke to Metro Éireann said there are differences of opinion on the issue of handshaking, particularly its application in Western societies", but then gave priority to the opinion of one "Shaikh" Shaheed Satardein:
Sheikh Shaheed Satardien, a Dublin 15-based imam, said that handshaking with a person of the opposite sex is not permitted during the 'state of ablution', as Muslims get ready to say prayer. He added, however, that this timeframe should logically not clash with a period of socialising. He said most Muslims in Ireland would shake hands with persons of the opposite sex, but that there is a "terrible and complicated diversity" in terms of the Muslim population in Ireland, who follow teachings in different ways, he said. "You must break your ablution when you socialise...The Koran wants rationality in our dealings."
This conveniently conflates the issue of whether shaking the hands nullifies wudu (ablution) with whether it is permissible. They are completely unconnected; there is nothing wrong with breaking one's wudu as long as one performs the ablution again before one prays. Not every forbidden action nullifies wudu, and a number of permitted actions - including a few of life's inevitabilities like using the bathroom - do nullify it, and in the Shafi'i school of Islamic law, which is followed in Somalia, touching anyone of the opposite sex, including one's spouse, who is not a close blood relation nullifies wudu.
Satardien is well-known as a self-aggrandising "pet moderate"; he chairs the so-called Supreme Muslim Council of Ireland and claimed, an interview with Metro Éireann, to be "a respected Muslim scholar all over Africa", when in fact it is inconceivable that any Muslim scholar would even be known across the whole of Africa. The "pet moderate" tends to attack assertive Muslims or Muslim activists to the non-Muslim media, and this attitude of his is typical of that. In fact, the mainstream position of all four schools is that shaking hands with a member of the opposite sex, or indeed touching them other than when absolutely necessary, is forbidden. If any scholar takes a more liberal position where western society is concerned, they should remember that the community as a whole will not follow them, and should not present their position to the media as the truth. However, every time such claims are made, it weakens the position of those who choose to follow Islam properly; the solution is for it to become well-known that Muslims do not do this, much as our dietary restrictions, and those of some other faiths, are well-known.
There will be a short film (3 mins) about the shaking hand issue on Ch4 some time later this year, insha'Allah. It's part of a four-part series. The other three are about daily prayer, hijab & the beard.
It's an interesting summary on the issue of handshaking. Thank you for it.
Are you not, however, slightly missing the point? Claiming that the presenter would have known about the attitude of many African men on the issue of handshaking is not the same as saying that she agrees with it or is willing to accept it.
That is one of the great freedoms we can all be thankful for.
Salaam Alaikum,
Those films sound really interesting, iMuslim.
Funnily enough, I had to refuse to shake hands twice today. I don't see why it's such a big deal, I explained politely and they understood.
No, I don't think so. *Especially* not at a facility for African immigrants, when a large proportion of Africans are Muslims. It amounts to one group of immigrants refusing to accept the customs of another and then appealing to outsiders' sympathies.
The point is that she claimed to have been shocked by Mr Sheikh's attitude, when in fact she would have known about it through having studied in a Muslim area (when she could have studied much nearer home, coming as she does from the far south). And it is not just "African men", it is African Muslims, male and female. She would have been entitled not to present the award, of course, but if he deserved the award, that should not have stopped him receiving it.
That Ms Attoh studied in the North of Nigeria does not mean she would know what Islam says regarding such issues. If you listened to her interview on newstalk radio, she said she had shaken hands with a lot of muslim men in the past and that she was not a part of the judging panel and had no knowledge that the muslim man was meant to receive the award. She was merely a presenter.
Interesting piece. In relation to the quoting of Sheikh Satardien, this was a breaking story and as such he was the person who was both available and prepared to talk at length. Later in the day, a second article was posted which gave a quote from another imam in Dublin. Unfortunately there was a reluctance to talk on the part of some.