|
|
| By israelinsider staff May 23, 2007 |
|
| |
 Bookmark to del.icio.us |
| |
Shavuot is a Jewish holiday associated with dairy products, but this breaking milky news pertains to our Muslim cousin.
AFP reports that a professor at Egypt's Islamic Al Azhar university Monday has retracted a religious edict which states that a woman can only be left alone with a strange man if she breastfeeds him.
Ezzat Attia, president of the university's Hadith department, which studies traditions based on the Prophet Mohammed's words and deeds, has withdrawn his fatwa and apologized for any inconvenience he caused.
He had stated that a woman is allow to be alone with a man to whom she is not related -- such as an office colleague -- if she nurses him "directly from her breast" at least five times.
The ruling had reportedly put a dent in milk sales throughout the Muslim world.
According to Mabruk Attia (apparently unrelated), a professor of theology at the university, the Prophet Mohammed had advised a woman to nurse her adult adopted son, to become his wet nurse, following an Islamic ban on adoption. The woman gave the man her breast milk from a bowl, and not directly from the teat, this other Professor Attia attested.
The ruling sparked a furor, especially among female professors. "If the country's top cleric himself had made the same statements, he would not be considered respectable," the aptly named Milka Yussef, a professor of theology at Al Azhar, told the weekly Al Karama paper. She said even debating the issue was "insane." She doubted that most Muslim women could produce more than four bowls full.
Ezzat Attia may have had liberal motives for his ruling, since Islam's strict prohibitions on male-female fraternization prevent men and women from working together. He argued that if a man nursed from a co-worker, it would establish a family bond between them and allow the two to work side-by-side without raising suspicion of an illicit sexual relation.
More conservative pundits in Egypt would have none of it. "When you walk into a government building, you should not be shocked to find a 50-year-old civil servant suckling his colleague," the independent daily Al Dustur said ironically after the fatwa was issued.
Apparently, colleagues will now need to be content drinking dairy delicacies from a bowl. |
|
 
|
|
|
|
Click on the blue headline to read a Talkback comment and respond to it. Click on the  icon to send a private email to the talkback writer. The icon appears only if the writer has decided to be contacted. If no popup window appears, please make sure your popup blocker allows israelinsider.com.
|
|
| |
|
|
