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A major row has started in the Arab world. Religious scholar are arguing whether or not to let boys and men drink milk from a strange woman. This is so that males can become Mehram [close relative] of females, and therefore, be alone with them. Some Sunni scholars claim that this breastfeeding of adult males is allowed in Islam, and they say Hadith books show that mature men can suck female breasts in order to become Mehram for them. Shias do not accept these Hadith as authentic. They say these traditions are fabricated. Prophet would never command a woman to nurse a young man. It is shameful and disgusting practice. We give below the details of the controversy.
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Rada (fiqh)
Rada is a technical term from Sunni Islamic jurisprudence meaning "the suckling which produces the legal impediment to marriage of foster-kinship". The term derives from the infinitive noun of the Arabic word rada ("he sucked the breast of his mother"). Often it is translated as "fosterage" or "milk-kinship".
The concept of rada derives from Islamic and pre-Islamic notions concerning the state of consanguinity created between wet nurse and unrelated nursling—that is, a woman and a baby other than her own—through the act of breastfeeding. Rada also defines the links between various relations and family members of both wet nurse and baby, such that not only are the two forbidden in marriage to one another, but so are their relations in various combination (e.g. the nursling's biological brother with the milk-mother's biological daughter). Conversely, the milk-relationship allows usually forbidden familiarities between the two, particularly if the nursling is male and of adult stature, such as viewing the milk-mother unveiled or in private, exactly as if he were a relation.
Rada receives extensive treatment in the Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) of the classical jurists (faqih). A primary feature of such works is the delineation of which relationships are subject to prohibition once the milk relationship is established. The following are the sorts of questions directed to the founder of the Hanbali school of jurisprudence by his son:
“I asked my father about a man who has two wives, each of whom has a daughter. Then one of the wives nurses a certain man. 'Is it lawful for this man's son to marry the daughter of the wife who did not nurse him?' (...) I asked my father about a man who has a wife who nurses both a youth and a girl, and the youth has a brother. 'Is it lawful for the brother to marry the girl?' (...) I hear my father asked about a woman who nurses a young female slave belonging to someone else. Then a certain man marries the woman who has nursed the young female slave. 'Is it lawful for the man to have intercourse with the female slave his wife has nursed if he buys and takes possession of her?'.”
Other common topics included the following:
laban al-fahl, "milk of the sire", as under Islam the wet nurse's husband is considered the actual owner of her milk (it is his semen which caused the pregnancy that stimulated her lactation), which ties of consanguinity exist between his relations and the nursling?
sifat al-rada al-muharrim, "quality of the milk", which ways of transmission create consanguinity?
adad al-rada al-muharrim, minimal number of sucklings necessary to establish fosterage;
rada al-kabīr, suckling of a grown-up person, the maximum age at which the milk-relationship may be established;
al-rada min mayyita, whether or not the absorption of milk from a dead woman creates the impediment.
Adad al-rada al-muharrim, or minimal number of sucklings necessary to establish the milk-kinship, was the subject of extensive debate and ever more elaborate exegetical theorizing.
For the adherents of older schools of law, such as the Malikis and Hanafis, one suckling was enough. Others, such as the Shāfi'īs, maintained that the minimum number was five or ten, and that in fact a Quranic verse had once stipulated this exact number until its wording had been expurgated from the Quranic text The following tradition (hadith) treats both this topic as well as that of rada al-kabīr, or suckling of an adult:
“She [Aisha] reported that 'in what was revealed of the Quran, ten attested breast-feedings were mentioned as required to establish the marriage-ban. The ten were replaced by mention of five attested breast-feeds. The Prophet died and the five were still being recited in the Quran. No man ever called upon 'Aisha who had not completed the minimum number of five sucklings'...”
“Urwa b. al-Zubayr reports that the Prophet commanded the wife of Abu Hudhayfa to feed her husband's mawla [i.e. servant], Salim, so that he could go on living with them [upon attaining manhood]. Salim b. Abdullah reports that he was never able to visit Aisha. She had sent him to be suckled by her sister Umm Kulthum who, however, suckled him only three times, then fell sick. Salim added, 'Thus I never did complete the course of ten sucklings' .”
For most jurists (Ibn Hazm being one prominent exception), the bar to marriage was effective only if the nursling was an infant. Yet even these allowed that a new relationship resulted between the two; Ibn Rushd, for example, ruled that the woman could now comport herself more freely in front of the nursed adult male, such as appearing before him unveiled. The famous traditionist Muhammad al-Bukhari was forced to resign his position of mufti and leave the city of Bukhara
Fatwa controversy in Egypt
In May 2007 Dr. Izzat Atiyya, lecturer at Cairo's Al-Azhar University, issued a fatwa that suggested that male and female colleagues could use breastfeeding to get around a religious ban on being alone together. The fatwa said that if a woman fed a male colleague "directly from her breast" at least five times they would establish a family bond and thus be allowed to be alone together at work. "Breast feeding an adult puts an end to the problem of the private meeting, and does not ban marriage," he ruled. "A woman at work can take off the veil or reveal her hair in front of someone whom she breastfed."
The fatwa sparked outrage and embarrassment, with critics deriding the author on Egyptian television. The university suspended the lecturer, who headed the university's hadith department. The fatwa was widely publicized by Arabic-language satellite television channels and was discussed in the Egyptian parliament. After being threatened with disciplinary action by the university, Atiyya issued a retraction, saying the fatwa was "a bad interpretation of a particular case" during the time of Muhammad and that it was based on the opinions of only a minority of scholars. Egypt
In June 2010, in Saudi Arabia
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IN THE NEWS:
Saudi clerics issue fatwa Okaying adult breast-feeding as way of circumventing Islamic law
9 June 2010
Kissing cousins? Not quite.
While it has been common for women to breast-feed their young male relations so that they may be allowed together alone later, two Saudi clerics recently advocated extending the practice to unrelated adult males.
As part of Islamic law, men and women are forbidden to be alone together, unless they are blood relatives or have established maternal relations, in order to prevent sexual contact.
As a way to avoid breaking this rule - which can result in lashings or prison time - Sheikh Al Obeikan, adviser to the royal court and consultant to the Ministry of Justice, told Gulf News that women should give their breast milk to male colleagues, acquaintances or anyone with whom they come into regular contact.
"The man should take the milk, but not directly from the breast of the woman," Al Obeikan said, according to Gulf News. "He should drink it and then becomes a relative of the family, a fact that allows him to come in contact with the women without breaking Islam's rules about mixing."
While Al Obeikan advises that milk should be pumped and then given in a glass, another Saudi sheik, Abi Ishaq Al Huwaini, argues that men should suckle directly.
Soon after these proclamations, a Saudi bus driver allegedly asked a female teacher, whom he drives frequently, for her breast milk, according to AOL News. The teacher refused and is threatening to sue.
This fatwa, which has sparked controversy and disapproval, has prompted some to call for stricter constraints on law making.
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Saudi Clerics battle over adult-breastfeeding, music fatwas
AFP – 4 July 2010
One Wahhabi cleric's endorsement of breastfeeding for grown men and another's saying music is not un-Islamic have opened up a pitched battle in Saudi Arabia over who can issue fatwas, or Islamic religious edicts.
Hardline and progressive religious scholars, judges and clerics have taken the fight public in what some describe as outright "chaos" in the once ivory-tower world of setting the rules that govern much of life in the ultra-conservative Muslim kingdom.
Much of the fight in the past week has focused on a fatwa endorsing music issued by Adel al-Kalbani, a Riyadh cleric famed as the first black imam at the Grand Mosque in Mecca
Kalbani, popular for his soulful baritone delivery of Quranic readings, said he found nothing in Islamic scripture that makes music haram, or forbidden.
But, aside from some folk music, public music performance is banned in Saudi Arabia
"There is no clear text or ruling in Islam that singing and music are haram," Kalbani said.
Also in recent weeks, a much more senior cleric, Sheikh Abdul Mohsen al-Obeikan, raised hackles with two of his opinions, both of which could be considered fatwas.
First, he endorsed the idea that a grown man could be considered as a son of a woman if she breast-feeds him.
The issue, based on an ancient story from Islamic texts and source of a furore last year in Egypt
It brought ridicule and condemnation from women activists and Saudi critics around the world.
But Obeikan, a top advisor in the court of King Abdullah, who is believed to be supportive of a less severe Islam in his kingdom, also angered conservatives when he said the compulsory midday and mid-afternoon prayer sessions could be combined to help worshippers skirt the intense heat of summer.
While the choice is allowed for individuals in certain circumstances, conservatives say such a broad ruling for everyone is wrong.
The comments by Obeikan and Kalbani brought rebukes from top-level clerics seeking to get control of a debate that has erupted into freewheeling public discussions in the media and on the Internet.
In his Friday sermon at Mecca
The effect, he said, goes so far as to undermine the country's security.
Meanwhile, the country's grand mufti, Sheikh Abdulaziz al-Sheikh, warned of a crackdown.
"Those who offer abnormal fatwas which have no support from the Koran should be halted," he said on Al-Majd television on Sunday.
"If a person comes out (with fatwas) and he is not qualified, we will stop him," he said, comparing such a person to a quack doctor allowed to treat patients.
Underpinning the sometimes esoteric debate is a real fight over liberalising the Saudi version of Islam, which bans women from driving and forces all shops to close down during the five-times-daily prayers.
Crucially, the government is also moving to build a consistency in the Islamic sharia law-based legal system, where judges are all clerics for whom fatwas play a crucial role.
The government wants only one body, controlled by the powerful Council of High Ulema, to issue fatwas, which other clerics must accept. Some people want fatwas more attuned to modern life.
"The people are governed by old ideas," said historian and columnist Mohammad al-Zulfa.
"People are forming a new mentality. (Many) have been waiting for such fatwas for a long time," he said about Kalbani.
"We are part of the world. We have to develop the legal system to meet the needs of the modern time," he added.
Earlier this year there was an embarrassing fight over the apparently free-thinking head of Mecca
He was fired, and then reinstated, in a behind-the-scenes skirmish between conservatives and progressives.
Hamad al-Qadi, a member of the Saudi Shura Council, called the fatwa fight this week "chaos".
"The Islamic world follows whatever comes out of our country and its scholars concerning Islam," he said, according to Al-Hayat newspaper.
For his part, Kalbani said he was open to discussion on the issue.
"The problem is that there are some who do not accept debate at all," he said.
He clarified that he was not endorsing all music, using two often risque Lebanese pop singers as examples.
"I am talking about decent singing, which contains decent words, and supports morality," he told the online newspaper Sabq.org.
"I am definitely not talking about the songs of Nancy Ajram or Haifa Wehbe or other indecent songs."
However, "if Nancy Ajram sang a song with a positive message, then she would be within my fatwa."
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Lecturer suspended after breastfeeding fatwa
REUTERS - May 21, 2007
The lecturer, Ezzat Atiya, had drawn on Islamic traditions which forbid sexual relations between a man and a woman who has breastfed him to suggest that symbolic breastfeeding could be a way around strict segregation of males and females.
But after controversy in the Egyptian and Middle East media, university president Ahmed el-Tayeb suspended Atiya pending an urgent investigation into his opinions, the Egyptian state news agency MENA reported.
Atiya is the head of the department which deals with sayings of the Prophet Muhammad and the university is part of the al-Azhar institute, one of the most prestigious in Sunni Islam.
Atiya's unusual opinion was widely publicised by Arabic-language satellite television channels and featured in a discussion in the Egyptian parliament.
The Dubai-based channel Al Arabiya quoted him as saying that after five breastfeedings the man and woman could be alone together without violating Islamic law and the woman could remove her headscarf to reveal her hair.
But a committee from al-Azhar said his proposal contradicted the principles of Islam and of morality.
Atiya had said he had drawn on medieval scholarship to justify his position. The opposition party newspaper al-Ahrar on Monday quoted him as saying he retracted his views because they were based on the opinions of a minority of scholars.
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BBC: 22 May 2007
Breastfeeding fatwa causes stir
One of Sunni Islam's most prestigious institutions is to discipline a cleric after he issued a decree allowing women to breastfeed their male colleagues.
Dr Izzat Atiya of Egypt 's al-Azhar University
His fatwa stated the act would make the man symbolically related to the woman and preclude any sexual relations.
The president of al-Azhar denounced the fatwa, which Dr Atiya has since retracted, as defamatory to Islam.
According to Islamic tradition, or Hadith, breast-feeding establishes a degree of maternal relation, even if a woman nurses a child who is not biologically hers.
'Family bond'
In his fatwa, Dr Atiya, the head of al-Azhar's Department of Hadith, said such teachings could equally apply to adults.
He said that if a woman fed a male colleague "directly from her breast" at least five times they would establish a family bond and thus be allowed to be alone together at work.
"Breast feeding an adult puts an end to the problem of the private meeting, and does not ban marriage," he ruled.
"A woman at work can take off the veil or reveal her hair in front of someone whom she breastfed."
The legal ruling sparked outrage throughout Egypt
On Sunday, Dr Atiya retracted it, saying it had been the result of a "bad interpretation of a particular case" during the time of the Prophet Muhammad.
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HADITH BOOKS
Sahih al Muslim:
Book 008, Number 3424:
Aisha reported that Sahla bint Suhail came to Prophet and said: Prophet, I see on the face of Abu Hudhaifa (signs of disgust) on entering of Salim (who is an ally) into (our house), whereupon Prophet said: Suckle him. She said: How can I suckle him as he is a grown-up man? Prophet smiled and said: I already know that he is a young man. 'Amr has made this addition in his narration that he participated in the Battle of Badr and in the narration of Ibn Umar (the words are): Prophet laughed.
Book 008, Number 3425:
Aisha reported that Salim, the freed slave of Abu Hadhaifa, lived with him and his family in their house. She (the daughter of Suhail) came to Prophet and said: Salim has attained (puberty) as men attain, and he understands what they understand, and he enters our house freely, I, however, perceive that something (rankles) in the heart of Abu Hudhaifa, whereupon Prophet said to her: Suckle him and you would become unlawful for him, and (the rankling) which Abu Hudhaifa feels in his heart will disappear. She returned and said: So I suckled him, and what (was there) in the heart of Abu Hudhaifa disappeared.
Book 008, Number 3427:
Umm Salama said to Aisha: A young boy who is at the threshold of puberty comes to you. I, however, do not like that he should come to me, whereupon Aisha said: Don't you see in Prophet a model for you? She also said: The wife of Abu Hudhaifa said: Prophet, Salim comes to me and now he is a (grown-up) person, and there is something that (rankles) in the mind of Abu Hudhaifa about him, whereupon Prophet said: Suckle him (so that he may become your foster-child), and thus he may be able to come to you (freely).
Book 008, Number 3428:
Zainab daughter of Abu Salama reported: I heard Umm Salama, the wife of Prophet, saying to Aisha: By Allah, I do not like to be seen by a young boy who has passed the period of fosterage, whereupon she (Aisha) said: Why is it so? Sahla daughter of Suhail came to Prophet and said: Prophet, I swear by Allah that I see in the face of Abu Hudhaifa (the signs of disgust) on account of entering of Salim (in the house), whereupon Prophet said: Suckle him. She (Sahla bint Suhail) said: He has a beard. But he (again) said: Suckle him, and it would remove what is there (expression of disgust) on the face of Abu Hudhaifa. She said: (I did that) and, by Allah, I did not see (any sign of disgust) on the face of Abu Hadhaifa.
Imam Malik’s Muwatta:
Book 30, Number 30.1.8:
Yahya related to me from Malik from Nafi that Safiyya bint Abi Ubayd told him that Hafsa, umm al-muminin, sent Asim ibn Abdullah ibn Sad to her sister Fatima bint Umar ibn al-Khattab for her to suckle him ten times so that he could come in to see her. She did it, so he used to come in to see her.
Book 30, Number 30.2.12:
Yahya related to me from Malik from Ibn Shihab that he was asked about the suckling of an older person. He said, ''Urwa ibn az-Zubayr informed me that Abu Hudhayfa ibn Utba ibn Rabia, one of the companions of the Prophet who was present at Badr, adopted Salim (who is called Salim, the mawla of Abu Hudhayfa) as the Prophet adopted Zayd ibn Haritha. He thought of him as his son, and Abu Hudhayfa married him to his brother's sister, Fatima bint al-Walid ibn Utba ibn Rabia, who was at that time among the first emigrants. She was one of the best unmarried women of the Quraysh. When Allah sent down in His Book what He sent down about Zayd ibn Haritha, 'Call them after their true fathers. That is more equitable in the sight of Allah. If you do not know who their fathers were then they are your brothers in the deen and your mawali,' (33:5) people in this position were traced back to their fathers. When the father was not known, they were traced to their mawla.
"Sahla bint Suhayl who was the wife of Abu Hudhayfa, and one of the tribe of Amr ibn Luayy, came to the Prophet and said, 'Prophet! We think of Salim as a son and he comes in to see me while I am uncovered. We only have one room, so what do you think about the situation?' The Prophet said, 'Give him five drinks of your milk and he will be mahram by it.' She then saw him as a foster son. Aisha took that as a precedent for whatever men she wanted to be able to come to see her. She ordered her sister, Umm Kulthum, and the daughters of her brother to give milk to whichever men she wanted to be able to come in to see her. The rest of the wives of the Prophet refused to let anyone come in to them by such nursing. They said, 'No! By Allah! We think that what the Prophet ordered Sahla bint Suhayl to do was only an indulgence concerning the nursing of Salim alone. No! By Allah! No one will come in upon us by such nursing!'
"This is what the wives of the Prophet thought about the suckling of an older person."
Book 30, Number 30.2.13:
Yahya related to me from Malik that Abdullah ibn Dinar said, "A man came to Abdullah ibn Umar when I was with him at the place where judgments were given and asked him about the suckling of an older person. Abdullah ibn Umar replied, ‘A man came to Umar ibn al-Khattab and said, 'I have a slave-girl and I used to have intercourse with her. My wife went to her and suckled her. When I went to the girl, my wife told me to watch out, because she had suckled her!' Umar told him TO BEAT HIS WIFE and to go to his slave-girl because kinship by suckling was only by the suckling of the young’."
Book 30, Number 30.2.14:
Yahya related to me from Malik from Yahya ibn Said that a man said to Abu Musa al-Ashari, "I drank some milk from my wife's breasts and it went into my stomach." Abu Musa said, "I can only but think that she is haram for you." Abdullah ibn Masud said, "Look at what opinion you are giving the man." Abu Musa said, "Then what do you say?" Abdullah ibn Masud said, "There is only kinship by suckling in the first two years."
Abu Musa said, "Do not ask me about anything while this learned man is among you."
CONCLUSION:
Sunni hadith books state that Prophet Mohammad let women to breastfeed their husband’s adopted son, even after puberty. Aisha believed she could nurse those men to whom she wanted to meet alone. She advised her sister and nieces to do breatfeed men to allow them to be with them. Prophet’s wives spoke out against this practice, saying it was for Sahla only. Umar and Ibn Masud believed kinship is limited to the nursing of a child for the first two years. Umar told a man to beat his wife for breastfeeding a slave girl.
Arab world is in turmoil over these Traditions. Other sects of Islam such as Shias do not believe these hadith books. They claim much falsehood has been attributed to the Holy Prophet. God’s book, the Quran does not allow women to even reveal their beauty to men other than their husband.
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