and a “breastfeed” consists of the child taking the breast into his mouth, drinking from it, and then letting go. This constitutes one breastfeed. If this happens five times during a single feeding session, these count as five breastfeeds. If it happens five times over two sessions, these likewise count as five breastfeeds. A breastfeed does not mean all that the child drinks during a single feeding session: she may breastfeed him in the morning and then in the evening, giving him many breastfeeds during each session. And Allah knows best.

He—may Allah Most High have mercy on him—was asked:

“If a boy is breastfed by a woman other than his mother, or a girl is likewise breastfed, whom is the child thereafter forbidden to marry? What constitutes a breastfeed that establishes a marriage prohibition? Does breastfeeding after weaning have any effect in establishing such a prohibition? Does the woman remain forbidden in marriage to someone who has passed the age of breastfeeding, or not?”

He replied:

If a boy or girl receives five breastfeeds from a woman within the first two years of life, the child becomes hers through breastfeeding. The man whose intercourse caused her to produce milk becomes the child’s father through breastfeeding. The woman’s brothers and sisters become the child’s maternal uncles and aunts, and the man’s brothers and sisters become the child’s paternal uncles and aunts. Her parents become the child’s grandfathers and grandmothers, and the children of either of them become the child’s brothers and sisters. All these relatives are forbidden in marriage to the child, for breastfeeding makes marriage unlawful to the same relatives as blood kinship does. Likewise, the children of this breastfed child are forbidden in marriage to his grandfathers and grandmothers, brothers and sisters, paternal uncles and paternal aunts,