Ever try to shake hands with a Muslim of the opposite sex? It can be one of the most awkward and embarrassing situations you’ve ever had to encounter.
If you’re a girl and you’ve tried to shake a Muslim guy’s hand, you may have heard this classic response, “I’m sorry, but I do not have the honor of touching you.” That’s because Muslims are not allowed to touch members of the opposite sex unless they are family members, the elderly or children. So what do I do? It really just depends. If a regular guy comes up to me and tries to shake my hand I’ll tell him very bluntly, “Sorry, I can’t shake hands with guys. It’s a religious thing.” I’ll admit, however, I’ve used a little technique called, “The act-like-you’re-sick-so-they-don’t-even-try-to-initiate-a-handshake technique.” I usually do this when I go on job interviews, and I know the person conducting the interview will be a guy. I simply just have to hold some Kleenex in my hand, and they automatically think I’ve got germs. I won’t lie to them; they will just assume. Apologies to my opinion editor – I used that one on him too. The next awkward situation occurs when you walk into the bathroom and see a Muslim sticking his or her foot into the sink. Your first reaction may be to freak out. That reaction then turns into thinking this might just be one of those “FOB” – fresh off the boat – things. And finally, you react by going and telling all your friends what you saw. We hear you when you run down the hallway saying, “Hey Joe! You’re never going to guess what that A-rab is doing!” even though the guy or girl you thought was A-rab turned out to be Indian. Muslims do this because we wash and purify ourselves before we have to pray, and we pray five times a day. This act of worship, called ablution, is performed by us in the same way the Prophet Muhammad used to do it. This includes washing the hands, face, arms, feet and more. The final awkward situation likely to occur is observing a Muslim praying without realizing he or she is actually praying. You may try to speak to us during the prayer, but we can’t answer you back until we are done. Our prayer consists of some positions such as standing while reciting verses from the Quran, bowing with hands on knees while reciting some words of praise to Allah, a humble prostrating position with our forehead and nose on the ground also reciting words of praise to our creator and, finally, a sitting position. To a person who has never seen Muslims pray, it might look a little like this: the person is staring at the ground for a good 2 minutes, the same person bending down to get a better view of the ground, the person looks like he or she is in severe pain thus putting forehead on the ground – almost like the fetal position – and finally sits down and looks to his or her right and left. I remember a sheikh nicknamed Abu Ayman used to live here in Baton Rouge. He told my classmates in high school a story of how he went to a small town in Louisiana to go fishing with his son. Since the town was small, they weren’t really familiar with Muslims. Anyway, it was time for prayer, and so while he was performing his prayer, a nice guy passing by saw him bowing and prostrating on the ground. He thought the sheikh lost something and was looking for it. So he attempted to speak during his prayer to him and asked him what he was looking for, but to his surprise, the sheikh wasn’t responding to him. So the poor guy got on the ground and started looking around for anything that the sheikh might have lost. I hope this essential guide to avoiding awkward situations comes in handy. If you think something you see is weird, chances are we have a good reason behind what we are doing. Just ask – most of us will never be offended. If you have any specific questions about Islam that you would like me to answer publicly through a column or privately through e-mail, please leave a comment under any of my columns online at www.lsureveille.com or e-mail me at the address below.
—-Contact Shirien Elmasraya at selmasraya@lsureveille.com.