In a number of earlier religious Dispensations and in
certain cultures the kissing of the hand of a religious figure or of a
prominent person was expected as a mark of reverence and deference to such
persons and as a token of submission to their authority. Bahá’u’lláh prohibits
the kissing of hands and, in His Tablets, He also condemns such practices as
prostrating oneself before another person and other forms of behaviour that
abase one individual in relation to another.
- The Universal House of Justice (‘The Notes section of the Kitab-i-Aqdas’)
