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Fatwa CenterFeeling the Breath Does Not Establish Hurmat Al-Musaaharah
Question
Does hurmat mushaharah become established if a person does not touch the other person and also does not feel the heat but feels the air/breath coming from the other person's mouth.
Answer
All perfect praise be to Allah, The Lord of the Worlds. I testify that there is none worthy of worship except Allah, and that Muhammad 
is His slave and Messenger.
Among those who extensively widened the scope of Hurmat Al-Musaaharah (the prohibition of marriage between a man and a woman’s female descendants and ascendants, or between a woman and a man’s male descendants and ascendants) are the jurists of the Hanafi School of Fiqh. They established it for many reasons, including (lustful) touching. Az-Zayla‘i 
said in Tabyeen Al-Haqaa’iq: “Fornication and lustful touching and looking establish Hurmat Al-Musaaharah... ” [End of quote] They underlined that the criterion for establishing Hurmat Al-Musaaharah because of lustful touching in the case when there is a barrier between them (like clothes for example) is that the hand feels the body heat of the touched person. In their statements that we have examined, they did not mention that the prohibition of marriage is established by simply feeling the breath coming from the other person’s mouth.
We believe that the preponderant scholarly opinion in this regard is that what is unlawful does not make unlawful what is deemed lawful under the Sharee‘ah. Thus, Hurmat Al-Musaaharh is not established by any of the things mentioned in the question.
Allah Knows best.
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