He appears to have regarded it as disliked in one’s place of residence only because it becomes frequent, while not everyone is entitled to it. If a person does it with some people but not others, those whom he leaves out will resent it, thinking that he has fallen short in their rights and favoured others over them; and the complete greeting is the handshake.”
Know also that some imams, such as Abu Hanifah and his companion Muhammad, held embracing to be disliked. Al-Tahawi related this view from both of them, in contrast to Abu Yusuf. Imam Malik was among them as well. In al-Adab al-Shar‘iyyah (2/278), it states: “Malik disapproved of embracing one who had returned from a journey, saying, ‘It is a blameworthy innovation.’ He explained the Prophet’s doing so with Ja‘far when he arrived by saying that it was particular to him. Sufyan said to him, ‘Do not single him out without evidence.’ Malik then remained silent.” Al-Qadi said: “His silence indicates that he accepted and agreed with Sufyan’s statement, and that is correct unless evidence for such specification is established.”
Imam al-Baghawi’s statement that one should not kiss the mouth has already preceded. Shaykh Ibn Muflih explained the reason for this in al-Adab al-Shar‘iyyah, saying (2/275): “Kissing the mouth is disliked, because it is rarely done merely as a mark of honour.” It also seems to me, for another reason, that it has not been reported from the early generations; had it been good, they would have preceded us in doing it. How excellent is the saying:
Every good lies in following those who came before,
and every evil lies in the innovation of those who came after.
It is astonishing, then, that that Aleppine doctor, the storyteller-preacher, who has set himself up to refute Salafi scholars and their followers, tracking down their slips and statements which, in his view, contradict the scholars’ positions, forgets himself. I heard a recording of his in which he censured one of them for holding that kissing the mouth is not prescribed, and explicitly declared that it is like kissing the forehead or the hand, with no difference between them! Thus, he fell into the very مخالفة he denounces the Salafis for. Had one of them drawn this “novel” analogy, he would have thundered and raged, shouted and wept theatrically, and marshalled every statement of the scholars that he could! But as for him, there is no harm—