Raḍāʿ or riḍāʿa (Arabic: رضاع, رضاعة) 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 radiʿa or radaʿa ("he sucked the breast of his mother"). Often it is translated as "fosterage" or "milk-kinship".
Contents
The concept of radāʿ 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. Radāʿ 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.
Sunni
Radāʿ 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:
Other common topics included the following:
ʿAdad al-radāʿ 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 Qur'ainic verse had once stipulated this exact number until its wording had been expurgated from the Qur'ānic text The following tradition (hadith) treats both this topic as well as that of radāʿ al-kabīr, or suckling of an adult:
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 after ruling that two nurslings who suckled from the same farm animal became milk-siblings.
Shia
As per Quranic guidelines, non-mahram (not related) people are forbidden for each other as long as they are not legally married. Shi'ite Islam prohibits marriage to the consanguineous kin of a milk-parent. In Shi'ite societies, the wet nurse was always from a subordinate group, so that marriage to her kin would not have been likely.
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's minister of religious affairs, Mahmoud Zaqzouq, has called for future fatwas to "be compatible with logic and human nature".
Saudi Arabia
In 2010, a clerical adviser to the Royal court and Ministry of Justice issued a fatwa suggesting that women should provide breast milk to their employed drivers thereby making them relatives (a concept known as Rada). The driver could then be trusted to be alone with the woman. The fatwa was ridiculed by women campaigners.