Fatwa ID: 05184

Answered by: Maulana Shadman Ahmed

Question

Can any woman breastfeed any child? We have only heard the prohibition of breastfeeding a co-wife. However, we don’t feel confident. Ex. It doesn’t say this anywhere, but we feel a sister breastfeeding her own baby brother is wrong.

In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful

Answer:

It is permissible for a sister to breastfeed her own baby brother. She will become her foster mother and he will become her foster son when he nurses from her within the timeframe of nursing. Her children will become related to his children as in a normal foster relationship.

Allah, the Highest, says “Prohibited for you are your mothers, your daughters, your sisters, your paternal aunts, your maternal aunts, daughters of brother, daughters or sister, your mothers who suckled you, your sisters through suckling, mothers of your wives and your step-daughters under your care who are born of your women with whom you have had intercourse,-though if you have not had intercourse with them, there is no sin on you,-and the wives of your sons from your loins, and that you combine two sisters (in wedlock), except what has passed. Surely, Allah is Most-Forgiving, Very-Merciful.” (Al-Nisa 23)

al-Fatāwā al-Ḥindiyyah, Vol. 1. Pg. 344. vols. (Dār al-Fikr, 1310H.).

Only Allah knows best

Written by Maulana Shadman Ahmed

Checked and approved by Mufti Mohammed Tosir Miah

Darul Ifta Birmingham