Handshakes, Islam, and Religious Tolerance in the West

by Jennifer S. Bryson
within Foreign Affairs, Islam, Religion and the Public Square

June 20th, 2016

True religious freedom demands that we allow space in our society for difference, even when we
dont understand the reasons for a particular religious practice. Having to live without fully
understanding others comes with the territory of genuine diversity.

Two Muslim boys in Switzerland have declined, on religious grounds, to shake hands with their
female teachers. The school district says Swiss custom should override religion and is now
threatening to fine the parents of the boys $5,000 if the boys continue to refuse to comply.

Some years ago, I worked with a male Muslim intern who refused to shake my hand for religious
reasons. The experience challenged me to think more deeply about tolerance and diversity, and I
think the lessons I learned are worth sharing.

In the summer of 2010, as Director of the Islam and Civil Society Project at the Witherspoon Institute
in Princeton, NJ, I hired my first Muslim intern, a young man named Muhammad. I was eager to
move beyond studying Islam from a distance and to develop the Project into an opportunity for
Muslim and non-Muslim Americans to collaborate together as partners on issues of shared concern.

I was impressed by Muhammads resume, which included a rigorous education at an excellent

college that left him just as prepared to attend graduate school in Islamic studies or medical school
(he has since done both). We had never met in person, as the internship had been arranged via email. But on paper he sure seemed like a rising star.

The first thing that happened when he arrived in Princeton to start his internship was that he
refused to shake my hand. Shock. Shock was my initial response. I tried to hide how stunned I was,
but it was difficult. He was absolutely gracious in declining. I felt angry when he refused to shake my
hand just because I am female, but it was hard to be angry at someone who was so kind. It wasnt
even clear to me what or who the object of my confused anger was. He explained that it was due to

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his religious beliefs that he does not shake womens hands. Was I, who had hired this intern to help
with religious freedom work, going to reject his freedom to follow his religious beliefs?

I suppressed how baffled and worried I felt. I moved right along as if nothing had happened. I
welcomed him to the Witherspoon Institute and began introducing him to the work we would be
doing that summer. But inside, my head and heart were spinning.

I have zero patienceI mean zerofor misogyny. Ive had boys in Yemen throw stones at me and
another woman. Ive been treated like a dangerous toxic substance by a Catholic priest who seemed
to wish desperately that women just didnt exist. Misogyny is a word I dont use lightly, but there
are times when it is the appropriate descriptor of some mens attitudes. I could not help but
wonder: was misogyny what I was experiencing? What I would be in for all summer long?

Yet, because I recognized that I did not understand why this young man refused to shake my hand, I
did not jump to conclusions. Instead, I took a wait-and-see approach. He was an American. A kid
from the Jersey shore. His refusal was religious, not cultural. I realized that I knew almost nothing
about this young man. Who was I to judge him? Moreover, I badly needed an assistant at work and
had prepared a mighty long to-do list for him. I knew we needed to work together in a spirit of
collaboration to get through the busy summer ahead. An antagonistic relationship seemed like it
would only get in the way. I swallowed my fears and acted like nothing had happened.

But something had happened: my assumptions about my own tolerance had been jolted with a
radical challenge. Was I tolerant enough and sufficiently appreciative of diversityparticularly of
religious diversityto live and let live, even if it made me feel slighted?

That summer with Muhammed, along with subsequent collaboration at the Witherspoon Institute
with Orthodox Jewish men who did not shake womens hands, taught me many lessons.

Lesson one: I was reminded concretely of something I knew abstractly: namely, that Muslims are
diverse. This young man was from a particular interpretive school of Shia Islam with which I was not
very familiar. In over twenty years of academic studies and professional work related to Islam, I had
never met a Muslim who, for religious reasons, would not shake a womans hand. Well, here was
one. And then I met Orthodox Jewish men who would not shake my hand. And here too I was
reminded: Jews are diverse. Moreover, for religious reasons, some Muslim women and some
Orthodox Jewish women do not shake mens hands. Issues of modesty, chastity, and ritual purity can
involve both men and women; this is not just an issue of male attitudes toward women.

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Lesson two: the reasons some religious men do not have social physical contact with women outside
of their direct families should not always be reduced to misogyny. Where there is actual misogyny, it
is something to be taken seriously. But painting all males with a broad brush is neither fair nor
accurate. Men should be given the opportunity to speak for themselves, to explain their own
thoughts, intentions, and consciences.

Lesson three: refusal to have physical contact with women is not necessarily equivalent to refusal to
recognize that women have professional abilities. This intern had absolutely no problem having a
woman as his boss that summer. He was eager to assist me, and he always listened attentively to
directions I gave him. He consistently did an excellent job carrying out the tasks I assigned to him.

Lesson four: refusal to have physical contact with women is not necessarily equivalent to refusal to
recognize that women have intellectual abilities. That summer, starting from that very first day, this
intern and I had fantastic discussions about some of the greatest minds in Muslim intellectual
history. He asked me lots of questions about my dissertation and treated me as a person from whom
he thought he might learn something. He gave me brilliant reading recommendations in modern
Islamic theology, all of them profound and challenging sources. He never treated me as if he thought
I was stupid. Never.

Muhammad was a fantastic intern. We were lucky to have him work with us that summer at the
Witherspoon Institute. He was a delightful colleague for all of us at the Institute and, significantly, he
treated all the women with respect.

While I do not know the particular reasons for the refusal of the two Syrian boys in Switzerland to
shake womens hands, I cant help but think of my intern Muhammad. After his internship, he went
on to do a Masters Degree at Harvard in Islamic theology, and now he is in medical school preparing
to serve others in society as a doctor. As an American, I feel my country is lucky to have such a
talented man, who values public service, as a citizen. If these two boys are even half as talented and
kind as Muhammad, the loss will be Switzerlands if this family cannot stay there.

I cant say that I genuinely understand why Muhammad wont shake womens hands, but having to
live without fully understanding is something that I think comes with the territory of genuine
diversity. Muhammad allows me the freedom to shake the hands of men who choose to partake of
this cultural practice, and I allow him the freedom not to.

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The principle of religious freedom demands that we allow space in our society for difference.
Genuine tolerance allows for difference. Of course, this is something quite different from trying to
pass off imposition of the cultural norms of those who are in power as tolerance simply by labeling
it so. I hope that the Swiss government is able to tell the difference between the twonot only for
the sake of those boys and their families, but for the sake of their own society.

Jennifer S. Bryson, PhD, is Director of Operations and Development at the Center for Islam and
Religious Freedom in Washington, DC.

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