BLOG 13 - The Shameful Suckling

[Dr. Shabbir]

SUCKLING ON THE BREASTS OF A YOUNG WOMAN:

This is a horrible Hadithi joke. Bukhari writes that Hazrat Ayesha’s goat had eaten up the date-leaf upon which were written two Quranic verses. This is supposed to have happened when there was chaos at home because of the demise of the Prophet (S). One of those verses was about stoning the ‘Sheikh and Sheikhah’, a mature or married man and woman, committing adultery. The other verse was about the grown-up men suckling on a young woman.

The goat-eaten, non-existent, “Ten Sucklings Verse” (the so-called Ayah Ridha'at) is a horrible joke. The 'Imams' of Hadith report that Hazrat Ayesha and Hazrat Maimoon used to advise women of an 'easy' way to admit unrelated men into their privacy. Let any grown up unrelated man suckle on the woman's breasts on ten different occasions and lo and behold! He becomes a Mahram (one who is a family member and can intrude into their privacy from then on). (Hadith 1934 Ibn Majah, 30:12 Malik’s Muwatta about the ‘criminal’ goat). About foster mothers, the Quran clearly states:

4:23 The following women are prohibited for you in marriage: Your … foster-mothers who have ever nursed you, foster-sisters …
The verse is obviously talking of babies and their foster mothers. Children become related to one another in a solemn bond of brotherhood or sisterhood by nursing from a common woman. The woman attains the honor of becoming their mother. According to Maududi, Imam Hanbal says that suckling on a woman on three occasions will confer the bond of suckling relationship on a child. But Imam Shafi’i differs saying that it has to be five times. However, to an aesthetically sound mind the principle is quite clear. But our jurists and Mullahs get entangled in silly disputes.

On Pg 338 Vol 1 of his Tafhim, Mullah Maududi writes that although the jurists differ on the age of suckling, even if a grown up man suckles on a woman, he will enter into the bond of suckling! But the foolishness does not end here. Maududi asserts in Tarjumanul Quran that the amount of milk actually swallowed is of terrible importance. How much milk? Maududi frantically seeks help from Imam Abu Hanifa and Imam Malik and comes up with a solution. Well, the amount is that which will be enough to break the fast of a fasting person. However, the three Mullahs fail to elaborate how much milk will be sufficient to break a fast. The Mullahs have neither the sense, nor the courage to reject Ahadith that insult human intelligence, such as this one of a grown up man suckling on a strange woman! Would the Mullahs advise this nonsense to their wives, sisters and daughters? Who knows if Maududi did that?

Ayatullah As-Syed Murtaza Hussain Nasir Ferozabadi, the compiler of “Life Events of Seven Sahaba” happily accepts the great insult but shows his ‘sensitivity’ by expressing his dismay on the reported judgment of Hazrat Ayesha and Hanbal for neglecting an important issue: “The man would have to handle the female breasts.” Maududi is least concerned about it.

Oh, another question. What if a woman has no milk? "Imam" Abu Yousuf said: Sucking at BOTH the dry breasts of a woman will fulfill the Shari'ah law, provided it is done on ten different occasions. (Gharaib fil Tahqiq-il-Mazahib Wa Tafhimul Masaail, Vol 2 Pg 137).

 Dear reader, our Imams and Mullahs are in the habit of answering questions that were never asked! In fact, they invent hypothetical situations.

Here is news on 19 Sep 2007:

Al Azhar scholar favors adult breastfeeding
Daily Times Monitor

LAHORE: Al-Azhar University in Cairo, the world’s leading Sunni university, reports: Sheikh Izzat Atiyaa has issued the fatwa as a way around the prohibition in Islamic religious law against a woman working in private premises with a man who was not her close relative, says the report. Breastfeeding, he argued, would create a familial relationship under Islamic law. Dr Atiyaa explained to the Egyptian newspaper al-Watani al-Yawm that: “A man and a woman who are alone together are not (necessarily) having sex but this possibility exists and breastfeeding provides a solution to this problem (by) transforming the bestial relationship between two people into a religious relationship based on (religious) duties.”

In Islamic tradition, breastfeeding establishes a degree of familial relationship between the nurse and the nursed even if there is no biological relationship. Dr Atiyaa argued in his fatwa that if an adult male was nursed by a female co-worker it would likewise establish a familial bond that would permit them to work side by side without raising suspicion of illicit sex.

Dr Atiyaa headed al-Azhar University’s department dealing with hadith. He said he had based his ruling on one such tradition according to which, at the Prophet’s (peace be upon him) order, a man named Salem was breastfed by the wife of another disciple. “The fact that the hadith regarding the breastfeeding of an adult is inconceivable to the mind does not make it invalid,” Dr Atiyaa said, in defending his ruling. “Rejecting it is tantamount to questioning the Prophet’s (pbuh) tradition.”