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Infants, Parents and Wet Nurses: Medieval Islamic Views on Breastfeeding and Their Social Implications (Islamic History and Civilization)

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"Infants, Parents and Wet Nurses: Medieval Islamic Views on Breastfeeding and Their Social Implications" by Avner Giladi, 1999, hardback, 191 pgs. Chapter contents: The foundations of an Islamic `Ethics of Breastfeeding', Breastfeeding in the Quran and in Quran commentaries; Breastfeeding in early `Oral Tradition'; Breastfeeding in Arabic-Islamic medicine; By the Mother or a West Nurse?; Wet nursing; The Nurse and her milk; When and how to wean; Islamic legal views on breastfeeding; Breastfeeding as a legal theme; Laban al-fahl; Sifat al-rada'; Adad al-rada al-muharrim; Rada al-kabir [suckling an adult]; Rada min al-mayyita [whether or not absorbing the milk of a dead woman creates an impediment to marriage]; The nursling; The parents; The father and his responsibilities; The nursing Mother; The wet nurse; Theories of Breastfeeding in practice: past and present; Glossary of Arabic terms designating child feeding. The reason for my researching this book is that I understand that a Muslim woman should always be escorted by a male relative while otherwise out alone in public, at least in Saudi Arabia. In 2009 a religious theologian in Cairo, Egypt issued a fatwa regarding his concept that if a woman was in a hurry to go shopping and a male relative was unavailable to escort her, she could allow any taxi driver (or store clerk, etc.) to suckle her, then, thereby, a woman could `trust' [through the newly established `milk kinship'] that unrelated male cab-driver to drive her unescorted to a shopping mall (I'm summarizing his fatwa). The underpinnings of this fatwa are referred to, starting about page 26 - does the unrelated male have to suckle between 5 to 10 times, or will 3 suffice to break the social ice? Umm Kulthum thought only three. And then there is the problem how atomic parts of the sperm of the woman's husband might enter her blood stream, and thereby her milk, and thereby how that might impact as to which taxi drivers a woman should be allowed to suckle. However, `milk kinship' creates numerous marital problems, depending whether or not the husband playfully suckles all four of his wives - and how that might cause him to have to divorce a couple of his wives if they have been rented out to wet nurse some unrelated baby (p. 74-77). If you have ANY interest in understanding Islamic thoughts regarding how breastfeeding and `milk kinship' impacts upon Muslim society, then this book is certainly one you want to wean on for intellectual sustenance.