dinner, and the like. Dinner is not every individual morsel that one raises to one’s mouth; rather, it is the مجموع of the morsels. The same applies to lunch: not every date that one swallows constitutes a lunch; lunch is the whole meal. Accordingly, what is meant by a feeding is a distinct act of nursing, separate from another. Merely releasing the breast, however, does not in fact constitute a separate feeding.

For example, if she nurses him at the beginning of the day at eight o’clock, then at nine, then at ten, then at eleven, and then at twelve, these are five feedings. But if she nurses him in one place, and he suckles the breast and then releases it to breathe, then returns and nurses, then releases it to breathe, then returns five times, all in a single sitting, this does not establish the legal effect according to this view.

If someone asks, “Which view is stronger?” we say: the basic principle is that it does not establish the legal effect, and we cannot be certain that it does except through five meals. Since the basic principle is that it has no effect, we adopt the cautious approach: it establishes no legal effect unless there are five meals—not five sucklings or five breaths. This was the view preferred by our shaykh, Abd al-Rahman ibn Sa'di, may Allah have mercy on him, and it is apparently also the view preferred by Ibn al-Qayyim.

If someone asks, “Why not regard five sucklings as the more cautious view?” we say: this presents a difficulty, for when we take precautions in one respect, we neglect them in another. For example, suppose a girl has suckled five times. If, out of caution, we say that the nursing woman’s daughter becomes the nursling’s sister, so that he is forbidden to marry her, another consideration then arises contrary to this precaution: if we say that she is his sister, it follows that he may be alone with her, travel with her, and that she may uncover her face before him. Yet the cautious course is that she should not do this, and she can only refrain from doing so if we say that the nursing does not establish the legal effect,