Islamic 'Adult Breastfeeding' Fatwas Return
As my mother flipped through the channels, she stopped at a talk show that we had never seen before called Daring Questions.
The set looked fresh and modern, and the host was a young, clean-shaven man with a warm smile. He wore a suit jacket and a tie, and he spoke Arabic with a Moroccan accent. He never said that he was a sheikh or an imam, but he said the show would discuss current issues about Islam.
He also introduced a guest named Dr. Mark Gabriel as an expert in Islamic history and culture. He was a little older than the host, but also clean shaven and wore a suit and tie.
Dr. Gabriel’s accent was Egyptian.
“Aren’t they handsome,” my mother said, nudging my sister.
The host announced, “Tonight we are discussing a new fatwa from Al-Azhar University that has shocked the whole world. Here is what happened.
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A Muslim lady in Egypt wrote a letter to one of the top scholars of hadith at Al-Azhar, Dr. Ezzat Atiyah. She explained that she shared an office with a man at work, and the boss wanted the door to the office closed.
Under Islamic law, she is not allowed to be alone in a closed room with a man who is not her husband, her father, or a close relative to whom she could not be married.
The professor responded by giving a fatwa that stated she could resolve the problem by breastfeeding the man, which, according to Islamic law, turns her into the man’s ‘mother in nursing.’
As his mother in nursing, the woman would be permitted to be in a closed room with the man.”
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Sheikh Ahmed answered her quickly, “Yes, the Prophet said that. I do not understand why anyone would have a hard time with this fatwa. The Prophet resolved a problem. This is one of the reasons Allah sent him—to resolve problems people face in their lives.”
The program host then aired a clip of a television reporter staring
in shock at the newspaper headline about the fatwa. This reporter had invited an imam on her television program to give a response. “Does this mean,” she pleaded with the imam, “that if I have a driver for my car, I must breastfeed him so that I can ride alone in the car with him? What about the gardener, or the butler? Help me, help me, help me!”
“What is the problem?” the imam said, smiling. “Just do what the Prophet said. The scholar who wrote this fatwa didn’t establish a new teaching in Islamic law. This man was just a mediator between the Prophet and the Muslim people who are living today. Anyone who objects to this fatwa objects to what Allah made lawful.”
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My mother innocently asked, “Is this the only way the Prophet could solve this problem? There is no other way except this?”
“Let me explain to you the story behind this fatwa,” said Sheikh Ahmed. “One day a man and his wife came to the Prophet with a problem. Before adoption was abolished, they had adopted a young boy named Salim. Salim had grown up with them as their son. However, after adoption was abolished, he was no longer related to his adopted mother. Therefore Islamic law said he could not be in a room with her alone.”
This mother came to the Prophet and said, ‘Messenger of Allah! 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 can we do about the situation?’
“The Messenger of Allah gave her an answer that solved her problem. He said, ‘Give Salim five drinks of your milk and he will be mahram by it.’ This meant that Salim would become her son in nursing, and then it would be acceptable for him to be with her just as if she were his mother.”
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We turned back to the television program and found the host was giving his concluding statement about the story. “Finally,” he said, “I want to talk here a moment about using our intellect when we think about religion. Religion is above the intellect, but it cannot contradict the intellect. This fatwa fights against logic. How can one wrong be solved with another wrong? Why would the wrong of a man and woman being in a closed room together be solved by having the woman expose her private parts to the man?”
Sheikh Ahmed frowned. I could see that he was offended, so I asked, “Do you want me to change the channel?”
“No,” he said sharply. “I want to see what’s going on.”
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Dr. Ezzat Atiyah is a real professor who was a leader in the study of hadith at Al-Azhar for decades. He wrote the fatwa about women breastfeeding their male co-workers and was subsequently fired by the university for it. The episode was highly publicized and caused a major shock to people all over the Muslim world.
You can read the material used for the fatwa for yourself in a section of Malik’s Muwatta titled, “Suckling of Older People,” on the University of Southern California website.
The same hadith says that Aisha used breastfeeding to make it permissible to meet with particular men. For example, if she wanted to meet with a certain man, she would have her sister or a female cousin breastfeed him. Then that woman would accompany the man as he met with Aisha. Muhammad’s other wives absolutely refused to follow this practice.
Even in the seventh century, many Muslims had trouble with a woman nursing an adult male. The Muslim community argued that Muhammad made a one-time indulgence for Salim’s mother to make Salim her son by nursing. For everyone else, they said, a person can only become a son or daughter in nursing during the first two years of life. In short, breastfeeding an adult was as shocking in Muhammad’s time as it is today.