raḍāʿ

▪ Islamic law

      (Arabic: “to suckle”), in Islam, a legal relationship established between children when they are nursed by the same woman, the result being that they are forbidden to intermarry. Such a prohibition was prevalent in Arabian society even before Islam. Arabs equate such kinship with true blood relationship. In Mecca, the Arabs had a custom, still retained, of hiring professional nurses from among the Bedouins to suckle their children in the belief that a healthy Bedouin woman would raise healthier children. The Prophet Muhammad himself was said to have been suckled by a famous Bedouin nurse named Ḥalīmah bint Abī Dhuʾayb.

      To prove the existence of raḍāʿ, the testimony of a single individual is sufficient. Muslim jurists do not agree on the degree of suckling necessary to establish raḍāʿ. Whereas some consider any act of nursing as sufficient to prohibit marriage, others demand no less than seven acts of suckling to produce an impediment to marriage. Still others argue that the child must be fed entirely. It is illegal to use raḍāʿ purposely to establish an impediment to marriage.

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