A woman who works alone in an office with a male colleague should breastfeed him five times until satiation, in accordance with Islamic law. The heated debate that has raged shows the complex nature of the relationship between modernity and tradition in the Arab Muslim world
Last update: 2022-04-22 09:23:56
A fatwa issued in Egypt in 2007 rules that a woman who works alone in an office with a male colleague should breastfeed him five times until satiation, in accordance with Islamic law. The heated debate that has raged shows the complex nature of the relationship between modernity and tradition in the Arab Muslim world: they have tried to adapt to each another and dominate each other in a continuous remodelling process that has generated a “fake modernity.”
In May 2007, in a famous religious TV program, a female employee of a major Egyptian bank inquired about Islam’s opinion on her case, for she had to work alone with her male colleague in a closed office, where nobody could enter without prior authorization of one of them. Sheikh ‘Izzat ‘Attiya – President of the Hadîth Department of al-Azhar University and a regular commentator on Egyptian TV, where he would promulgate fatwas concerning people’s daily affairs – replied that the woman’s presence in an intimate setting with a male colleague was neither admitted by Islamic law, nor accepted by Islam. When asked about what the lady could do then, since she was forced to work in those conditions, he replied that the lady should breastfeed her male colleague five times until satiation, and in that way staying alone with him would become permitted. Then he explained that his fatwa was based on the judgment of a number of early imams and ancient fuqahâ’ of similar cases and who relied on oral transmissions from the Prophet Muhammad relating that, after the revelation of some Qur’anic verses that prohibited adoption, he suggested a woman from Medina to breastfeed her adopted son so that he could enter to see her alone. Those fuqahâ’ corroborated their judgment by recalling the practice of ‘Ȃisha, the Prophet’s wife, who after her husband’s death used to ask some female relatives to breastfeed any male stranger she wanted to have visit her.
This fatwa stirred a bitter controversy in the Egyptian and Islamic societies. For months it remained the main subject of debate in talk shows, newspaper op-eds and even cartoons, which all agreed that should this fatwa be applied in modern society, it would turn adult breastfeeding into a social rite practiced daily by the absolute majority of men and women. This ferocious debate induced the Egyptian parliament to interfere on the basis of the interventions of some MPs belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood (who, in the 2005 election, had gained 25% of the parliament’s seats). In the dispute raised by this fatwa, they saw a menace to their political program, whose success was basically relying on the slogan “Islam is the solution” and on the call to the application of the sharia. Thus, the Muslim Brothers found themselves compelled to replicate the arguments of their contenders – the liberals – by claiming that not all rulings preserved in the books of Islamic jurisprudence were valid and appropriate. For instance, sheikh Sayyid ‘Askar, former Deputy Head of the Islamic Research Academy and parliament’s deputy for the Muslim Brotherhood, refused the fatwa, saying that, even though the hadîth on adult breastfeeding was sound and could not be repudiated, the majority of Islamic scholars disagreed on whether to consider it as a special occurrence or a judgment that could be generalized. The predominant opinion was that it represented a special case, which could not be taken as a model. Allowing adult breastfeeding in such a way was, in sheikh ‘Askar’s opinion, a wrong application of ijtihâd, breaking the principle of ijmâ’ (consensus) and paved the way for the spread of depravity in society, for he asserted that it was not reasonable to speak about adult breastfeeding in modern society. Such a phenomenon, the sheikh added, had indeed been an occurrence concerning only the “Mothers of the Believers,” and what applied to them did not apply to the rest of women.[1]
Sheikh Mâhir al-‘Aql, Islamic preacher and another parliament’s deputy for the Muslim Brotherhood, protested vigorously. He maintained that Dr. ‘Izzat ‘Attiya’s fatwa on adult breastfeeding was not correct, because the famous fourteenth century jurist Ibn al-Qayyim, while mentioning the hadîth, clarified that it was a special fatwa for Sâlim, the mawlâ[2] of Abû Hudhayfa. In fact, in the Qur’an the duration of breastfeeding is specified as lasting two years, after which it must cease (2:233). What is more, such feeding can happen only on the condition that “it grows the flesh and strengthens the bones,” but sheikh al-‘Aql noted that adult breastfeeding does not lead to such a benefit. On the contrary, it awakes carnal desire, because exposing the breast of a woman to someone other than her husband is equivalent to exposing her genitals.(...)
After months of fighting tooth and nail, with the debate ranging from seriousness and mockery, the al-Azhar University decided to remove Dr. ‘Izzat ‘Attiya from his office and pension him off.
However, the fatwa on adult breastfeeding made again its appearance when the judicial consultant of the Saudi Ministry of Justice, sheikh ‘Abd al-Muhsin al-‘Ubaykân, issued it a second time. Even though he made a step forward, by saying that breastfeeding should not take place through direct contact of the man’s lips with the woman’s breast, but through a container from which the man could drink, he stirred the same turmoil and the same repercussions as those provoked by Dr. ‘Attiya in Egypt.
A Deluge of Fatwas
What is most relevant about this fatwa is that it does not represent an exception, but rather a significant example of the main trend in the fatwa-issuing process across the whole Islamic world.[3] Although a relentless flood of fatwas is flowing from India in the east to Morocco in the west (the Egyptian Dâr al-Iftâ’ alone issues over 50,000 fatwas per month, both in oral and written form, through telephone calls, letters, emails and faxes)[4] what really draws concern is the strong similarity between all of them, be it at the level of content, approach or rationalization; and this despite significant differences between societies, cultures, institutions and the fuqahâ’ issuing them. This leveling cannot be attributed simply to the use of a common religious and legal reference represented by the Islamic law, because a consolidated principle in Islamic jurisprudence, both theoretically and practically, is that fatwas must change according to time and place. In fact, the same imâm (religious scholar, from now on imam), has often pronounced two different rulings for the same case, in consideration of varied conditions. Perhaps, the most famous example of this is the imam al-Shâfi‘î, the founder of the science of Islamic jurisprudence, who is known to have issued a verdict in Egypt, which contradicted another one he issued in Iraq.[5]
We are facing here a socio-religious cognitive phenomenon that distinctly embodies the relationship between religiosity and public reason in the Arab-Islamic context. After the Arab revolts, with the Islamists taking control of the post-revolutionary parliaments, the relevance of this phenomenon has been further enhanced by the fact that Islamic law is no longer a slogan, but has become the blueprint of ruling parties which have tried to change the legal and constitutional structure of the modern secular state. For this reason, and to draw the full picture of the phenomenon, it is useful to linger for some time on the so-called “scientific” dialogue that took place around the adult breastfeeding fatwa in the field of Islamic jurisprudence.
The fatwa’s supporters relied on a sound (sahîh) hadîth, described by Ibn al-Qayyim (the most important traditional reference for the salafis) as having been
narrated by a large group of Companions of the Prophet, who transmitted it to another large group of Followers, one after the other; then, it was recorded by hadîth scholars of different epochs, who never questioned it and, finally, it was transmitted to another huge group of people, so that some men of science have said, ‘This tradition has fulfilled all requirements of tawâtur (the maximum degree of reliability).’[6]
Between Sunna and the Qur’an
However, all this did not prevent the fatwa’s opponents from casting doubts on the hadîth, on the basis that it was in contrast with the Qur’an, the only sacred text for Muslims, whose preservation from corruption was guaranteed by God himself. The Qur’an says, “Mothers shall suckle their children for two whole years; (that is) for those who wish to complete the suckling…,” (2:233) and the suckling, according to the Qur’anic text, takes place in childhood, not in adulthood.
The fatwa’s supporters did not deny this hierarchy of texts, but they argued “The Sunna came to deliberate over the Qur’an, not the opposite.” In so doing, they relied on a firmly established principle of Islamic jurisprudence, which asserts that the Sunna explains, and sometimes abrogates, the Qur’an,[7] on the basis of what is said in the noble verses “…and We have revealed unto thee the Remembrance that thou mayst explain to mankind that which hath been revealed for them, and that haply they may reflect (16:44).” Thus, the Sunna is a clarification of the Qur’an.
The dispute on the soundness of the text has not been settled yet, as well as the one on its consistency with the other sacred texts. Nonetheless, the dispute has extended to the significance of the text and the limitations of reasoning by analogy (qiyâs): Does that hadîth concern only Sâlim, the mawlâ of Abû Hudhayfa? Is it a general hadîth that can be applied unconditionally? Or is it a special permission, valid only in case of need, to someone who cannot avoid the intimacy with a woman, who finds troublesome concealing herself from him?[8] Islamic jurisprudence’s debate on the significance of the text did not achieve any definite result either. What is worth mentioning is that in the Middle Ages this debate never addressed the issue of a man’s intimacy with a woman because that was a rare occurrence. The original subject of debate was instead the different kinds of breastfeeding that interdict marriage.[9]
The “Secular” Solution
Intellectuals outside the circle of Islamic jurisprudence and religious scholars have also made their contribution to the running debate. The moderate among them attacked the fatwa, because according to them it was disconnected from the spirit of the modern age and incapable of understanding the tools it offered. In fact, they argued, instead of issuing the fatwa it would have been possible to simply recommend the installation of a webcam to watch the closed office, or even use glass doors and transparent walls so that no unlawful intimacy could exist. The secularists among them considered the fatwa “a fruit of those miserable religious sciences that should be better left to history, to the concern of historians of science, law and daily life.” They inquired:
If the order given by the Messenger of God to that woman (that is to say to breastfeed the man she had adopted before) was a special concession that cannot be taken as a model, why shouldn’t we consider, then, all the rulings issued during the Prophet’s age special cases that cannot be applied to our time? If the experts taken as reference for issuing the fatwa on adult breastfeeding were mistaken, what is assuring us that they were not mistaken about other rulings as well – which the Islamists insist on putting into operation – in the domain of personal status, criminal law and other fields of life?[10]
Religious Institutions and Political Power
This adult breastfeeding fatwa has a number of important aspects that are worth assessing – aspects that pertain as well to all the other fatwas. These aspects tell us as much about the mindset of the religious authorities who issue these fatwas as about the mindset of those who demand them.
Firstly, the adult breastfeeding fatwa was released by officials holding leading positions in official religious institutions, both in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Their authority is what made the fatwa so outstanding in the whole Islamic world. This reveals the traditionalistic nature and structure of these institutions, adopted by the political power – with their compliance – to serve its own interests. There is no difference, in this respect, between the secular, liberal Egyptian Republic and the reactionary, theocratic Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
The political exploitation of the official religious institutions is not in contradiction with their violent reaction against the fatwa, because that reaction was just a prelude to the legalization of the full monopolization of these institutions by the state – and with the support of liberal actors! – through the granting of fatwa-issuing licenses exclusively to qualified individuals the state has authorized. Indeed, no example can embody the concept of theocracy better. It is also a kind of political masquerade, because the officials issuing fatwas are usually the same chosen by the ruling authority to lead the religious institutions. A few examples are sufficient: the then Grand Imam of al-Azhar University, Dr. Sayyid Tantâwî, appointed by the President of Egypt, issued a fatwa prescribing eighty whip lashes for journalists diffusing false, or inaccurate, news and opinions.[11] In the same year, Dr. ‘Alî Jum‘a, then mufti of Egypt, also appointed by the President, claimed that the Companions of the Prophet were drinking his urine to get his blessing. Likewise, the former mufti of Saudi Arabia, Ibn Bâz, prohibited saying that the Earth revolves around the Sun, imitated later on by al-‘Uthaymîn, another Saudi mufti.[12]
Secondly, this fatwa reveals a high degree of overlapping and harmony, not contradiction, between the traditionalist structures of heritage and its cognitive and speculative system on the one hand, and the structures of modernity and its institutions, instruments and terminology on the other. In fact, the various debates around adult breastfeeding – that occurred for fear of sexual disorder leading to social turmoil – took place in the bank, at the university, in Parliament, in the government, in the administrative court, by the mass medias and social networks; and they were not restricted to the men of religion, but involved politicians, lawyers, university professors, journalists and intellectuals. In the past, when the means of communications were limited to pen and paper, fatwas were distinguished for their generality. It was up to the people to use their own thinking and ijtihâd to establish a link between a renowned fatwa and their own personal situation. Today, with modern means of communication, it is possible for anyone to obtain a personal fatwa, customized to one’s case and no one else. As a consequence, with a fatwa in hand, a person does not need any more to think, reason by analogy or debate.
Thirdly, this huge number and variety of fatwas reflect a similarly huge number and variety of demands. One could have the impression that Muslims have lost the ability of judging by themselves, leaving all responsibility of thinking, in every matter concerning how to conform daily life with religious beliefs, to the men of religion. As for these men of religion, who carry the burden of thinking on behalf of society as a whole, they present themselves as mediators between the righteous fathers of Islam and their sons who are living in modern society. They are nothing else but transmitters of the imams of the past – which is also the source of their legitimacy and power.
Reality and the Adaptable Model
In conclusion, Islamic jurisprudence’s debate around the adult breastfeeding fatwa reveals that the ultimate aim of all those who jumped into the fray was to conform to the “text” and pour reality into the mold of its words, a mold which narrows or expands according to the relation with power. No thinking and no vision of reality are possible except as filtered by the text, whereas what does not conform to the text has no legitimacy of existence.
The debate aroused by these fatwas, and the attention this debate has drawn, cannot be attributed to their weirdness only. Actually, it is exactly the opposite. It is even possible to claim that the religious, cultural, social and political debates in the Arab-Islamic world have the same structure as the debate around these fatwas. A few meaningful examples will clarify this point of view.
Ayman al-Zawâhirî, the current leader of al-Qaeda, during one of his TV appearances once declared that the incompatibility between Islam and democracy cannot be mended, because democracy allows the existence of a plurality of parties, which implies in turn a plurality of ideologies, whereas, in an Islamic society only two parties can exist, the party of God and the party of Satan. At the opposite side of the political spectrum, we see secular feminist thinkers such as Fatima Mernissi who retain, like al-Zawâhirî, that Islam is incompatible with democracy. However, according to Mernissi, this incompatibility exists because Islam is a primitive religion unable to go past the theory of rule through divine investiture, as the Caliph (or any other ruler) is believed to be God’s shadow on Earth who does, unchecked, whatever he wants.[13]
Prominent theologian Dr. ‘Abd al-Mu‘tî Bayûmî, on the other hand, tries to reconcile Islam with democracy and says:
Many think that the separation of powers is not a product of Islamic civilization, but an achievement of the western one. These people would be surprised to know that this is not true. The truth is that the first Islamic state founded by the Messenger of God (may God bless him and grant him peace) was the first to distinguish and separate the three powers. The western civilization has borrowed this fundamental principle, which lies at the basis of the modern state, from Andalusia. It derived it from Islamic sources and documents. Were not for those documents, such as the Charter of Medina, considered the first constitution in human history, western thinkers would not know the separation of powers.[14]
Between exclusion and identification
We can see that the different stances on the adult breastfeeding fatwa are always based on the exclusion of the “other.” The fatwa’s supporters accuse the fatwa’s opponents of going against the Prophet’s teachings and thus they hold them as excluded from Islam. The strongest exclusion, however, occurs on both sides at the expense of reality and of the essence of the problem itself. This happens when they make two extremes coincide, for instance when they claim that Islam is democracy, or that the use of webcams is the way out from the conflict between an immutable religious text of reference and a reality that does not want to be squeezed into it.
According to Muhammad ‘Ȃbid al-Jâbrî, the Moroccan philosopher,
The notions brought forth by the modern and contemporary Arab discourse neither reflect nor give expression to the current Arab reality; they are borrowed, most of the time, either from the European thinking – where they refer to a reality which has come into effect (or is in the process of coming into effect) – or from the medieval Arab-Islamic thinking – when they had a true, specific content (or it is believed so). In both cases, these notions are employed to give expression to a hoped for, undefined reality; an obscure, altered reality, taken from this or that ideal picture among all those lingering in the Arab consciousness/memory. From this originates the breakup of the relationship between the act of thinking and its object, which turns the discourse that should give expression to it into a mere discourse of quotations, not a discourse of contents.[15]
This brings us to another mechanism of the contemporary Arab discourse, namely identification. In fact, Arab intellectuals in general – in the words of ‘Alî Harb – are
prisoners of the traditional models of the Golden Ages. Traditionalists and modernists are equal in this, for all of them think in a typically fundamentalist way. Traditionalists, despite their differences, think in terms of bringing back the age of the Prophet, or the age of the rightly guided Caliphs, or the Abbasid age; or, alternatively, they want to reproduce Averroes’ rationalism, Ibn Khaldûn’s realism or al-Shâtibî’s theory of higher objectives and intents of Islamic law. Modernists on the other hand, despite their variety, think in terms of bringing back the age of Renaissance, or the classical age, or the age of Enlightenment; or they try to reproduce Descartes’ methodology, Voltaire’s liberalism, Kant’s rationalism, Hegel’s historicism or Marx’s materialism.[16]
Thus, the Arab mind, in both its modernist and traditionalist manifestations, works according to the same mechanism despite the different references they adopt. The Arab mind transforms any intellectual achievement – traditionalist or modernist – into an identity to which one must belong, instead of submitting those references to inquiry and research. The crisis of the Arab mind lies in a lack of harmony with time and space, or – better – in a lack of harmony between time and space, so that the traditionalist lives “here” but is estranged from “now” because he dwells in a glorious past, whereas the modernist lives “now”, but is estranged from “here”, because he lives “there” in the West.
The “Third” Culture
The relationship between modernity and tradition – above all Islam – is not one of opposition, then. It is rather an interplay between the two, whose products are forms of reciprocal adaptation to one another, in the context of a culture that is neither modern nor traditional: the culture of people who received modernity without creating it, in a way they did not choose and through a history they did not make.
This complex relation between tradition and modernity has produced different models of both. The elements of modern culture which have been the focus of attention in the transformation process towards modernity were of a particular nature in that they had to do with consumption without production, external appearances without internal disposition, form without content, emotions and instincts without reason. The emerging tendency, in fact, is to take only the consumerist aspects without the rational bases at their origin.
In the West the appearance of modernity has implied the rupture with the traditions of the past. However, the modernity of the Arab world has interacted with tradition in a different manner. It has established a complex relationship with heritage, in which each – modernity and tradition – have managed to adapt to the other, while, at the same time, subduing it; each have managed to reject the other, while, at the same, fighting it. We are not facing two separated, or even conflicting, worlds, but rather a process of continuous remodeling, in which the two cultures merge into a special blend, giving birth to a “fake modernity” – for example, in terms of lifestyles, public views and behaviors that can neither be described as traditional nor as modern, but are a distorted mixture of both. We are speaking here of a “third culture,” which relies on principles contrasting with those that have given rise to modernity as it is understood in the West. However, these contrasting principles do not necessarily stem from traditions and heritage, for this fake modernity disfigures tradition as much as it disfigures the authentic manifestations of modernity. The best proof of this is that this fake modernity rejects the rational and reasonable dimension in both of them, i.e. the reason on which the Western modern civilization was founded and the reason which lies at the basis of Islamic heritage and civilization. This fake modernity rather tends to lean on mazes of irrationality and the exaltation of innate, instinctive feelings. This third culture reproduces itself in the midst of growing contradictions, which originate at the level of its basic components: tradition and modernity.
In the light of this, it is possible to understand why the movement of ijtihâd and religious enlightenment has faded away; why it did not extend, once it emerged in particular periods of Arab-Islamic modern history, and why the religious discourse has simply turned into a rigid interpretation of religious texts, both when it supports and when it opposes the ruling authority. This religious discourse is characterized by a lack of historicity, originating, as the renown thinker Muhammad Arkûn writes, from
an uninterruptedly recurrent mental look that, whatever the historical circumstances, conflicts and different socio-political developments, always moves from the assumption of the existence of an authentic Islam, in perfect agreement with the notion of a religion-truth.[17]
This fake modernity has not allowed the creative forces and potentialities of rationality and human reason contained in this discourse to develop. Instead, the mechanisms of modernity have worked at preserving this mentality in the religious discourse. In other words, modernity has developed the rigid, irrational elements of heritage and tradition, while these two have developed the formal, non-authentic aspects of modernity.
The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Oasis International Foundation
[1] al-Arabiya, 17 May 2009, www.alarabiya.net.
[2] A mawlâ (pl. mawâlî), frequently translated as “client,” is a non-Arab Muslim bound to an Arab through a relationship of artificial kinship.
[3] Fu’âd Matar, Alf Fatwâ wa-Fatwâ, Muslimûn fî Mahabb al-Fatâwâ (al-Dâr al-ʿArabiya li-l-‘Ulûm, Beirut, 2010).
[4] http://www.dar-alifta.org/Module.aspx?Name=aboutdar&LangID=2.
[5] Shams al-Dîn al-Manâwî, Farâʾid al-Fawâ’id fî Ikhtilâf al-Qawlayn li-Mujtahid Wâhid (Dâr al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiya, Beirut), pp. 100-108.
[6] Ibn al-Qayyim, Zâd al-Ma‘âd, 5/517; al-Albânî, al-Ta‘alîqât al-Radiya, 2/332; Ibn Hazm, al-Muhallâ, 11/9.
[7] Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr, Jâmi‘ Bayân al-‘Ilm, 2/1194; al-Dârimî, Sunan, 1/145; al-Khatîb, al-Kifâya, p. 47; al-Suyûtî, Miftâh al-Janna, p. 45.
[8] Muhammad b. ‘Ȃlî al-Shawkânî, Ahâdîth al-Ahkâm Nayl al-Awtâr (Dâr al-Hadîth, 1993), Kitâb al-Ridâ‘, Bâb mâ jâʾa fî Radâʿa al-Kabîr.
[9] Muhammad al-Hafnawî, al-Mawsûʿ al-Fiqhiya al-Muyassara, al-Zawâj Dâr al-Imân, (Dâr al-imân, Cairo), pp. 416-417.
[10] Rajâ’ b. Salâma, al-Hiwâr al-Mutamaddin, n. 1926, May 5, 2007.
[11] Al-Masrî al-Yawm, October 21, 2007.
[12]Majmûʿ Fatâwâ wa-Maqâlât al-Shayḫ Ibn Bâz, 9/228; February 27, 2005 http://www.islamweb.net/fatwa/index.php?page=showfatwa&Option=FatwaId&Id=59419.
[13] Fatima Mernissi, Islam and Democracy. Fear of the Modern World (Addison Wesley Publishing, Addison, 1992), pp. 13-22.
[14]‘Abd al-Mu‘tî Bayûmî, “Al-Islâm wa-l-Dawla al-Madaniyya,” al-Hilal no. 650 (February 2005), p. 36.
[15] Muhammad ‘Ȃbid al-Jâbrî, al-Khitâb al-‘Arabî al-Mu‘âsir. Dirâsa Tahlîliya Naqdiya (Markaz Dirâsât al Wahda al-‘Arabiya, Beirut, 1992), p. 182.
[16] ‘Alî Harb, Awhâm al-Nukhba aw Naqd al-Muthaqqaf (al-Markaz al-Thaqâfî al-‘Arabî, Casablanca,1996), p. 92.
[17] Muhammad Arkûn, Ayna huwa al-Fikr al-Islâmî al-Mu‘âsir, London 1992, p. 52.
To cite this article
Printed version:
Wael Farouq, “Reason Between Breastfeeding and Weaning”, Oasis, year XI, n. 21, June 2015, pp. 64-74.
Online version:
Wael Farouq, “Reason Between Breastfeeding and Weaning”, Oasis [online], published on 31st July 2015, URL: https://www.oasiscenter.eu/en/reason-between-breastfeeding-and-weaning.