Saturday, 18 April 2026 (1 Dhuʻl-Qiʻdah 1447 AH)
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[The Ruling on a Grandmother Offering Her Breast to Soothe an Infant 1]

Fatwa No: 18784
Date: 2025/12/25
Views: 7

Question: Many questions have reached me—still they come—about a grandmother who takes her grandchild in her lap and offers her breast to quiet the child’s crying; the infant sucks the grandmother’s breast. What is the ruling of this nursing?

The answer I gave was: the nursling becomes the grandmother’s child, and so it is not permissible for him thereafter to marry his cousin-girl and the like. This is because a woman, even in advanced age, may, upon suckling, excrete milk or serum. If the grandmother—or anyone else—knows that something of that entered the child’s stomach, the matter is clear; and if she does not know, then believers are cautious in doubtful matters—especially where private parts (marriageability) are concerned. And in the hadith: “How is it with him when it has been said?”
Source : Min Thimār al-ʿIlm wa al-Ḥikmah vol.1