play is unobjectionable and that a dispensation has been granted for it. Yet to acquire such figures and keep them in the house for decoration, remembrance, or anything of that sort is forbidden—by the consensus of the Muslims—especially when the images are fashioned as statues.

Question: There is another matter: after certain animals or birds die, their skins are sometimes stuffed so that they look exactly as they did when alive and are then set up in houses for adornment. Do these take the same ruling as images?

Answer: Yes, they do take the ruling of images, for this is a form of frivolity and it opens the door to further excess, leading people to place three-dimensional images and statues in their homes once this gateway is opened. Even stuffed birds or other taxidermied animals should not be kept, for it is pointless, brings no benefit, and paves the way to keeping statues.

Moreover, the very process of embalming these creatures—bearing in mind that they are carcasses and that a dead animal is impure, so it is impermissible to touch or use it—does not remove the ruling of impurity. Thus they are prohibited both because of their impurity and because they serve as an entry point to the acquisition of statues.

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Upbringing Does Not Establish Lineage

Question: A woman adopted a boy and raised him alongside her own children, yet she did not breast-feed him. Is it permissible for her to marry him to one of her daughters? And if she were to breast-feed him, would he then take their father’s surname and inherit from him, and he from the boy?

Answer: The mere fact that she nourished this child from infancy and brought him up in