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Chapter on the Rulings of Breast-feeding (riḍāʿ)

Allah the Exalted, when listing the categories of women who are forbidden in marriage, says: “Your foster-mothers who nursed you, and your foster-sisters” (Qurʾān 4:23).

In the two Ṣaḥīḥ collections it is related that the Prophet ﷺ said: “Breast-feeding renders unlawful whatever is rendered unlawful by blood-kinship.”

He also said, as narrated by all the major compilers: “Breast-feeding produces the same prohibitions as childbirth.”

Linguistically, riḍāʿ refers to drawing milk from the breast or drinking it. In the Sharīʿah it means: a child under the age of two sucking milk that was produced as a result of pregnancy, or drinking that milk in any comparable manner.

With respect to marriage, seclusion, maḥram relationships, and the permissibility of looking, the legal effect of riḍāʿ is identical to that of blood-kinship, as will be detailed shortly.

However, these rulings are established only when two conditions are fulfilled: