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Wa `alaykum As-Salamu wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuh.
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.
Dear questioner, we would like to thank you for the great confidence you place in us, and we implore Allah Almighty to help us serve His cause and render our work for His Sake.
First of all, we would like to stress the fact that to the student the teacher should be like a physician to a patient. The student is obligated to respect the teacher or the scholar because they are heirs of the Prophets. So having disdain for them refers to having disdain for their position, their inheritance from the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him), and disdain for the knowledge that they carry. So it is obligatory to respect the scholars for their knowledge and status in the Ummah and for the responsibility that they carry out for the benefit of Islam and the Muslims. So we must have good manners towards them, for this is the way to success, learning and strength.
In his response to the question, Dr. Muzammil H. Siddiqi, former President of the Islamic Society of North America states:
“There is no harm in kissing the hands of elders, religious teachers or scholars to express love, respect and admiration for them. However, in kissing the hands, one should be very careful not to put one's forehead on the hands of the person, because this is a form of sajdah (prostration). The sajdah is only for Almighty Allah. Making sajdah to any person or thing is forbidden in Islam.
Kissing the feet of another person or bowing before another person in such a way as to touch his/her feet is forbidden in Islam. In some cultures people do that to show their respect for their elders, but Islam does not allow it. It resembles sajdah and, as we said before, the sajdah is exclusively for Allah. Muslims should avoid anything that may resemble shirk (idolatry or polytheism).”
Excerpted, with slight modifications, from:
http://pakistanlink.com/religion/religion-8-16-96.html
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