Question: Breast feeding In Islam: Can A Husband Suck His Wife’s Milk
Breast feeding in the Quran:
Allah says: … your foster mothers who gave you suck and your foster milk suckling sisters…” [Suratun-Nisa’ vs 23].
Breast feeding in the sunnah:
Ibn ‘Abbaas reported that, the Prophet salallahu alayhi wassalam said:
“What is forbidden by radaa’ (breastfeeding) is the same as what is forbidden by nasab (lineage).”
(Saheeh Bukhaari, Saheeh Muslim,l 1444)
Breastfeeding for a child:
Allaah says: “The mothers shall give suck to their children for two whole years, (that is) for those (parents) who desire to complete the term of suckling…” [al-Baqarah 2:233].
Conditions that makes breastfeeding a person become a Mahram (a son/relative) to that person:
- the person must have sucked it as a child.
- The child must have sucked the breast at least 5 times within the first two years of his life.
- if a husband above the age of 2years sucks the breast, it doesn’t make such a person a ‘son’ to the woman
If the husband sucks her milk, does it make him a son to his wife?
Abu Atiyah al-Waadi said: “A man came to Abdillah Ibn Mas’ood and said: ‘My wife was with me and her breasts were full of milk (she was engorged). I began to suck it and spit it out. Then I went to Abu Moosa.’ He (Ibn Mas’ood) said, ‘What did you tell him?’ So he (Abu Moosa) told him what he had told the man (that the man has become a son to his wife). Then Ibn Mas’ood stood up, took the man’s hand (and said), ‘Do you think this man is an infant? Breastfeeding is what produces the growth of flesh and blood, he is not a son to her. Abu Moosa said: ‘Do not ask me anything ever again as long as this scholar (Ibn Masud) still lives among you.’” (Reported by ‘Abd al-Razzaaq in al-Musannaf, 7/463, no. 13895).
READ MORE: How To Welcome New Child In Islam
This hadith shows that sucking a woman’s milk doesn’t make her husband to become a son to his wife.
Another hadith that supports sucking the milk
Abd-Allaah ibn ‘Umar said: ‘ A man came to ‘Umar ibn al-Khattaab one day and said: “I have a slave-girl with whom I used to have sexual relations, and my wife went to her and gave her her milk, then when I went to the slave girl, my wife said: ‘Stop, by Allaah I have given her my milk, she is now like a daughter to me and no longer permissible for you to be intimate with her’” ‘Umar said, “Go and punish (your wife), and (continue to) go to your slave-girl, because the ruling on breastfeeding only applies to infants not adults.
(al Muwatta of imam Malik).
Scholarly opinions:
Shaykh Muhammad ibn Saalih al-‘Uthaymeen said:
Breastfeeding an adult has no effect, because the breastfeeding which has an effect (of making the drinker a son) is that which consists of five feedings or more within the first two years, before weaning. On this basis, if it happened that someone breastfed from his wife or drank her milk, he does not become her son because of that.. (Fataawa Islamiyah, 3/338)…
READ MORE: Child Marriage in Islam
Conclusively, all these and more evidences shows that Islam allows a man to enjoy his wife’s milk. So whenever your wife is lactating, you and your child should share the milk, what is good for the goose is good for the gander. In fact, any time her breast is full and leaking away and the child is not available to drink it, instead of her to be pressing it away and wasting it, as a husband, quickly go to her and relive her of the stress and discomfort by sucking it, because Allah has made it Halal for you, it’s the natural milk from Allah which is better than all other artifical milk.