As a Muslim I am only allowed to bow and prostrate to God, not to other people. This is a problem in Japan, where bowing is considered a common greeting.
How should I handle greetings at work and with clients when unable to bow, without coming off as disrespectful?
Edit: A lot of people seem to be debating whether this is an act of worship (or not), and does your religion maybe tolerate this? Well... I thought that would be clear from what I said:
Muslims are only allowed to bow and prostrate to God because we consider such things acts of worship, and Islam is a very monotheistic religion
This should seem obvious as I am trying my best to mend ways, and come up with the best solution possible. Please do focus on the question itself, thank you very much :).
Edit 2:
let me strengthen my edit so that it would be more understandable,
there are 73 sects in islam and each sect has it's own views, and each one's views are so drastically different that they are almost like their own religion. for example the Isis are Khawarijites. yep. that is how much difference there is between the sects. so as to make it simpler, just know that i belong to a sect and that sect forbids bowing to any other than Allah, ironically bowing is a part of our daily 5 prayers.