Suckling of Adults
- philhoraia
- Apr 20, 2022
- 5 min read
' A'isha (Allah be pleased with her) reported that Sahla bint Suhail came to Allah's Apostle (may peace be eupon him) and said:
Messengerof Allah, I see on the face of Abu Hudhaifa (signs of disgust) on entering of Salim (who is an ally) into (our house), whereupon Allah's Apostle (ﷺ) said: Suckle him. She said: How can I suckle him as he is a grown-up man? Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) 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): Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) laughed.
'A'isha (Allah be pleased with her) reported that Salim, the freed slave of Abu Hadhaifa, lived with him and his family in their house. She (i. e. the daughter of Suhail came to Allah's Apostle (ﷺ) and said:
Salim has attained (purbety) 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 Allah's Apostle (ﷺ) 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.
Zainab daughter of Abu Salama reported:
I heard Umm Salama, the wife of Allah's Apostle (may peace be upon himy, saying to 'A'isha: By Allah, I do not like to be seen by a young boy who has passed the period of fosterage, whereupon she ('A'isha) said: Why is it so? Sahla daughter of Suhail came to Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) and said: Allah's Messenger, 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 Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said: Suckle him. She (Sahla bint Suhail) said: He has a heard. 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 Hudhaifa.
Umm Salama said to 'A'isha (Allah be pleased with her):
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 'A'isha (Allah be pleased with her) said: Don't you see in Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) a model for you? She also said: The wife of Abu Hudhaifa said: Messenger of Allah, 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 Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) said: Suckle him (so that he may become your foster-child), and thus he may be able to come to you (freely).
..."Sahla bint Suhayl who was the wife of Abu Hudhayfa, and one of the tribe of Amr ibn Luayy, came to the Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, 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 do you think about the situation?' The Messenger of Allah, may Allah bless him and grant him peace, said, 'Give him five drinks of your milk and he will be mahram by it.' She then saw him as a foster son. A'isha umm al-muminin took that as a precedent for whatever men she wanted to be able to come to see her. She ordered her sister, Umm Kulthum bint Abi Bakr as-Siddiq and the daughters of her brother to give milk to whichever men she wanted to be able to come in to see her....
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.
A maid:
Yahya related to me from Malik that Abdullah ibn Dinar said, "A man came to Abdullah ibn Umar when I waswith 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.' "
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 said it offered a way around segregation of the sexes at work.
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 and the Arab world.
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.
Egypt's minister of religious affairs, Mahmoud Zaqzouq, has called for future fatwas to "be compatible with logic and human nature". http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6681511.stm
It is argued that the woman was to give him a cup of milk, but the old pervert tells her to suckle. Suckle does not mean 'give a cup of milk'. The Egyptian scholar clearly understands the former's meaning.
Drive through Adult Breastfeeding 🤣🍾