and an even stronger inducement to temptation than the eye’s mere glance, a fact every fair-minded person readily concedes.

Third: letting any part of one’s body touch that of a non-maḥram woman is a direct gateway to taking sensual pleasure from her, especially in an age where God-consciousness is weak, trust has eroded, and people show little scruple about doubtful matters. We have been told time and again that some ordinary husbands will kiss their wife’s sister mouth-to-mouth and call that kiss— which is unanimously forbidden—“a greeting.” They will say, “Give her salām,” meaning: “kiss her.” The incontestable truth, therefore, is to keep well away from every source of temptation, suspicion, and their causes; chief among them is a man touching any part of a non-maḥram woman’s body. Any avenue that leads to the unlawful must be firmly closed. End of citation.

To conclude, O believing men and believing women, I remind you of Allah’s counsel to you: “Tell the believing men to lower their gaze and guard their private parts; that is purer for them. Allah is well aware of what they do. And tell the believing women to lower their gaze and guard their private parts, and not to display their adornment except what is apparent of it, and to draw their veils over their bosoms, and not to display their adornment except to their husbands, or their fathers, or their husbands’ fathers, or their sons, or their husbands’ sons, or their brothers, or their brothers’ sons, or their sisters’ sons, or their womenfolk, or those whom their right hands possess…” (Al-Nūr 24:30–31).