Even without this particular corroborating route, the earlier lines of corroboration are sufficient to reinforce the ḥadīth. For that very reason al-Ḥāfiẓ Ibn Ḥajar, in al-Talkhīs (p. 367), endorsed al-Tirmidhī’s grading of the report as ḥasan. From this it becomes clear that al-Bayhaqī’s remark, “Ḥanẓalah was its sole narrator,” is inaccurate—and Allah knows best.

Once this has been understood, it refutes one of our contemporaries who works in the field of ḥadīth. He authored a slim treatise entitled Iʿlām al-Nabīl bi-Jawāz al-Taqbīl, in which he gathered every report on kissing he could find, whether authentic or not. He then cited the present ḥadīth and declared it weak because of Ḥanẓalah, apparently unaware of the supporting chains that uphold it. After that he construed the ḥadīth as referring only to cases where the motive for kissing is some worldly advantage such as wealth, status, or political authority. This is a mistaken interpretation, for the Companions who asked the Prophet ﷺ about kissing were certainly not speaking of such contrived forms of kissing; they meant a kiss offered as a greeting, just as they had asked him about bowing, embracing, and shaking hands. All of these were intended as forms of greeting, and the Prophet granted them none of them except the handshake. Is a handshake pursued for worldly benefit? By no means.

The correct conclusion, therefore, is that the ḥadīth is a clear, unequivocal text establishing that kissing upon meeting is not legislated. This ruling does not encompass kissing one’s children or one’s spouses, which is obvious. As for the narrations reporting that the Prophet ﷺ kissed certain Companions on specific occasions—such as his kissing and embracing of Zayd ibn Ḥārithah when he arrived in Madinah, or his kissing and embracing of Abū al-Haytham ibn al-Tayhān and others—there are several answers to that: