Fatwa No. 13

Question:

I am a young woman who has become deeply attached to my foster brother (akhī min al-riḍāʿah) — I seek Allah’s forgiveness — to the point that at times I have even supplicated Allah that he become my husband. I am five years older than him. I love him with a pure and honourable love. How can he be my foster brother (brother through breastfeeding) while I feel love toward him?

Answer:

Praise be to Allah, Lord of the Worlds. To proceed:

The prohibition through fosterage( nursing/riḍāʿah) extends between all those who nursed from the same breast, regardless of how much time has elapsed between them. Allah Most High said among the categories of women forbidden in marriage:

“And your sisters through fosterage(riḍāʿah).” (al-Nisāʾ 4:23)

And the Prophet (ﷺ) said:“What is forbidden through kinship is forbidden through fosterage(riḍāʿah).” ¹

If a boy nurses together with a girl from her mother, that boy is forbidden from marrying: the girl who nursed with him; all daughters subsequently born to that wet nursing whether they nursed with him or before him or after him; and whether they are her daughters by birth or her daughters by fosterage. However, the boy’s own brothers are not forbidden from marrying the wet nursing woman’s children. There is therefore no impediment to marriage between those who did not nurse from the same breas  the prohibition attaches only to the nursed child with respect to all those who nursed from the same woman who nursed him, while his siblings are not restricted.

As for you, my dear daughter — since you nursed together with this young man from the same breast, the prohibition of fosterage(riḍāʿah) is established between you provided the nursing reached five known, complete sucklings (khams raḍaʿāt maʿlūmāt)  for the Prophet (ﷺ) said:

“A single suckling or two sucklings do not establish prohibition.” ²

And:

“A single latching or two latchings do not establish prohibition.” ³

In the authentic ḥadīth, the Mother of the Believers ʿĀʾishah (may Allah be pleased with her) said: “Among what was revealed of the Quran was: ‘Ten known sucklings establish prohibition’  then this was abrogated by ‘five known sucklings.’ The Prophet (ﷺ) passed away while these words were still being recited as part of the Quran” ⁴  meaning that some people continued to recite “five sucklings” as a recited Quranic text because news of the abrogation had not yet reached them due to its recent occurrence. When the abrogation subsequently reached them, they ceased, and the scholars reached consensus that this wording is no longer to be recited in Quran.

It therefore remains to verify the number of sucklings in order to confirm whether the prohibition is established. If the prohibition is confirmed, then turn away completely from this matter entirely. Know that these feelings, after the establishment of the prohibition, are satanic feelings and not merciful ones  they are from Shayṭān, who wishes to draw you into his destructive paths. Be vigilant in guarding yourself against him on your own soul.

Know that despair is one of the two forms of relief — for when the soul despairs of something, it finds rest from it and ceases to turn toward it. As the poet said:

In despair lies one of the two forms of relief for the one who loves — though one of the two forms of relief is itself a kind of torment. ⁵

If the disease of infatuation does not fade with despair, thenthen the disposition has become severely distorted. In this case, one must transition as Ibn al-Qayyim states  one must move to another form of remedy: the treatment of the intellect. The person must come to know that the heart’s attachment to something entirely beyond attainment is a form of madness  and such person is like someone infatuated with the sun, whose soul longs to ascend to it and orbit with it in its celestial sphere  and such a person is counted by all rational people among the ranks of the insane. ⁶

Finally  and indeed first and last: sincere turning to the One who answers the distressed when He is called upon. Cast yourself before Him at His door, beseeching Him, supplicating with humility, and submission  for when you are granted this, you have knocked upon the door of divine success (bāb al-tawfīq). Occupy yourself with the remembrance of Allah  Exalted and Majestic  and beseech Him to turn this suffering away from you for the hearts of servants are between two fingers of the Most Merciful, and He turns them however He wills  as the Prophet (ﷺ) said. ⁷ And if Allah brings to you a righteous young man, bind yourself to him  for this will greatly assist you in moving beyond this trial.

And Allah Most High knows best.

Footnotes

(1) Muttafaq ʿalayh — recorded by al-Bukhārī and Muslim — on the authority of Ibn ʿAbbās (may Allah be pleased with them both).

(2) Recorded by Muslim in Kitāb al-Riḍāʿ — on the authority of ʿĀʾishah (may Allah be pleased with her).

(3) Recorded by Muslim in Kitāb al-Riḍāʿ — on the authority of Umm al-Faḍl bint al-Ḥārith (may Allah be pleased with her). The term imlājah (إملاجة) denotes a single complete act of nursing in which the infant latches on and suckles until satisfied.

(4) Recorded by Muslim in Kitāb al-Riḍāʿ, chapter “Five Known Sucklings Establish Prohibition” — on the authority of ʿĀʾishah (may Allah be pleased with her).

(5) The verse is by Ibn al-Shibl al-Baghdadi, one of the poets of the Abbasid era, and it is from the al-Ṭawīl meter (a classical Arabic poetic meter).

(6) Ibn al-Qayyim al-Jawziyyah, “Zād al-Maʿād fī Hady Khayr al-ʿIbād”, vol. 4, p. 251.

(7)  Muslim in Kitāb al-Qadar no. 2654 — on the authority of ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ (may Allah be pleased with them both): “Indeed, all the hearts of the sons of Adam are between two fingers of the Most Merciful, as though they were a single heart  He turns it however He wills.”