984 – Umm Salamah (may Allah be pleased with her) said: The Messenger of Allah ﷺ declared, “Nothing from suckling makes a relationship unlawful except that which opens the intestines and occurs before the time of weaning.” Related by al-Tirmidhi, and both he and al-Hakim judged it authentic.⦗1⦘

Hadith grading:
The report is ṣaḥīḥ (authentic). Al-Tirmidhi recorded it, adding: “A good, sound hadith; its chain meets the conditions of the Two Shaykhs.” It also has a supporting narration from ʿAbd Allah b. al-Zubayr traced back to the Prophet, transmitted by Ibn Majah with a good chain whose narrators are all trustworthy transmitters of Muslim, apart from Ibn Lahīʿah. Although his memory was weak, his reports from the ʿAbādilah are sound, and this is one of them. Among those who declared the hadith authentic are Ibn Hibban and Ibn al-Qayyim in Zad al-Maʿad.

Vocabulary:
– la yuḥarrim (“does not render unlawful”): with a doubled r and kasrah; that is, it is not a cause of prohibition.
– fataqa al-amʿāʾ (“opened the intestines”): fatq means “to split open”; here it refers to milk that actually reaches and passes through the intestines.
amʿāʾ (intestines): plural of miʿā (also pronounced maʿā), meaning the gut; singular miṣrān.
– al-fiṭām (weaning): One says fatamat al-murḍiʿu al-raḍīʿa, meaning the wet-nurse separated the infant from suckling. She is fāṭimah, the child is faṭīm or mufṭam, and the noun fiṭām—with kasrah on the f and fatḥah on the ṭ—denotes cutting the child off from breastfeeding.