“Nasal administration, oral administration, the milk of a deceased woman, and the milk of a woman with whom intercourse occurred under a mistaken belief of legitimacy, through an invalid or void marriage contract, or through zina, give rise to marital prohibition …”

The author’s statement, “Nasal administration, oral administration, the milk of a deceased woman, and the milk of a woman with whom intercourse occurred under a mistaken belief of legitimacy, through an invalid or void marriage contract, or through zina, give rise to marital prohibition,” means that “give rise to marital prohibition” is the predicate of “nasal administration” and all that is joined to it. In other words, nasal administration and the other matters mentioned establish marital prohibition.

The term suʿūṭ may be pronounced with either a dammah or a fathah on its first letter, as may wujūr, though the meaning differs. With a dammah, it denotes the act itself; with a fathah, it denotes the substance administered through the nose or mouth. This is like suḥūr, which denotes the act of taking the pre-dawn meal, and saḥūr, which denotes the food eaten; or wuḍūʾ, which denotes the act of ablution, and waḍūʾ, which denotes the water used for it. Likewise, ṭuhūr denotes the act of purification, while ṭahūr denotes the water used for purification, and so on.

Thus, nasal administration is through the nose, while oral administration is through the mouth, on either side—right or left. In nasal administration, milk is taken from a woman and instilled into the child’s nose. Nowadays, hospitals place a tube through the nose to nourish the patient. The evidence for this is the hadith of Laqit ibn Sabirah, may Allah be pleased with him: “Be thorough in sniffing water into the nose, unless you are fasting.” (1) This is because the water reaches the stomach through the nose, which is a passage leading to the stomach.

What remains is administering milk rectally. The position of the school is that this has no effect: it is neither nursing nor analogous to nursing, even though they hold that it invalidates the fast;