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Middle East Peace Through Islamic Breastfeeding?
Breastfeeding Fatwa Causes Stir
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."
BBC NEWS | Middle East | Breastfeeding fatwa causes stir
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