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Is it permissible for a father to embrace or hug his 23-year-old daughter?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

It is permissible for a father to embrace his adult daughter and kiss her on the head, forehead, or cheek, out of mercy, compassion, and love, provided there is no fear of temptation and no arousal of lust.

Kissing the mouth is not permissible because it is a place where there is a strong presumption of arousing lust, and it is specific to spouses.

It is recommended to embrace, hug, and kiss sons and daughters in their childhood as a form of mercy and affection, which is a basic psychological need for children. Prophetic hadiths indicate the permissibility of kissing and embracing young children, such as the Prophet's kissing of Al-Hasan and Al-Hussein, and Abu Bakr's kissing of his daughter Aisha on her cheek. And whoever does not show mercy will not be shown mercy.

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

Read the full answer on Ftawy