Question:
Assalam-o-alaikum dear sheikh,
A sheikh said that the following hadith relates to sexual touching, not mere touching of the opposite gender:
“It would be better for one of you to have himself stabbed on the head with an iron needle than to touch a woman that is illegal for him.” (Bayhaqi, Tabarani).
I was thinking over his explanation and it doesn’t make sense to me. The explanation would mean “its haram to touch non-mahrams sexually. The opposite meaning inferred is that its halal to sexually touch mahrams“? Thus the explanation doesn’t make sense.
However, if the explanation is “its haram to actually touch (meaning the literal meaning of “touch/mass”) non-mahrams, then the opposite is that its halal to touch mahrams“. This explanation makes sense.
What are your thoughts respected sheikh?
jazakAllah khair for your time.
Answer:
Wa `alaykum salam,
His explanation relates to intercourse with other than a spouse, although the scholars generally understood this hadith literally as mere touch (misas), not figuratively as intercourse, and it is one of the intensively preventive hadiths such as the prohibition of khalwa and the description of woman as `awra, like the verses, “Do not approach this tree” and “Do not approach zina,” where the approach itself is a sin although what is ultimately meant is the greater sin of partaking from it.
Nevertheless, he may have a basis in the Hanafi (and majority) interpretation of the term laamastum al-nisa’ (touch women) in the verse al-Nisa’ 4:43, “And if you are ill, or on a journey, or one of you comes from the latrine, or you have touched women…” wherein lexically the cognates of l-m-s are synonymous with those of m-s-s. However, the latter approach is based on athar from Ibn `Abbas and others, whereas there is no such precedent for the hadith, and Allah knows best.
Hajj Gibril Haddad