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Milk-kinship prohibition (rada')

محرمية الرضاع

The prohibition effected by suckling in the forty-fourth hadith of Ibn Rajab's additions: 'suckling prohibits what birth prohibits', or in another wording 'what lineage prohibits is prohibited by suckling' — the scholars agreed on acting upon it in sum, as Ibn Rajab reports, so that suckling establishes in marriage the very prohibited degree that birth establishes: whatever would be forbidden to the nursling were he a son is forbidden through the nursing woman, her kin and the milk-father, and the commentary's division of the prohibited degrees — the everlasting individual prohibition and the rest — applies to milk as it applies to lineage (Jami' al-Ulum wal-Hikam p. 864).

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Era
The Prophetic Era
Region
Global / Diaspora
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Law and courts

Overview

Foster-kinship (mahramiyya al-rida') is the subject of the forty-fourth hadith of Ibn Rajab's additions: "Fostering makes unlawful what birth makes unlawful." In another wording: "What is unlawful by lineage is unlawful by fostering." 1

Its effect

Ibn Rajab relates the consensus of the scholars on acting upon it in general. Foster-kinship establishes the same kind of forbidden degree in marriage that birth establishes, so that what would have been forbidden to the suckling child had he been a son becomes forbidden to him, both through the nurse and her relatives and through the owner of the milk. 1

The division in the commentary of the prohibited degrees into those permanently forbidden on their own and others applies to fostering as it applies to lineage. 1

Connections

Explore the connections

Based on
Arba'un 44 — suckling prohibits what birth prohibits
Related to
Breastfeeding and weaning· Sending infants to Bedouin wet-nurses

People and things also explored

Maintenance of the divorced nursing mother and infant· Breastfeeding and weaning· Quraysh· Aisha bint Abi Bakr· Sending infants to Bedouin wet-nurses· Arba'un 44 — suckling prohibits what birth prohibits· Ahliyya (legal capacity: to have rights and duties, and to act; its stages from the womb to full maturity, and what impairs it)· Democracy and the Sharia — compatibility and conflict

Sources

  1. Jami' al-Ulum wal-Hikam — Ibn Rajab al-Hanbali , p.864
Cite this page

islam.museum contributors. “Milk-kinship prohibition (rada')”. islam.museum, https://islam.museum/en/concept/rada/. CC BY-SA 4.0. Last updated 2026-10-16.

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Ideas

Beliefs, concepts, sciences and schools, explained in plain words. Related

Maintenance of the divorced nursing mother and infant

From al-Baqara 2:233 Sha'rawi holds that maintenance and clothing fall on the father, the one to whom the child is born, and that they are owed to divorced nursing mothers rather than to wives in general; that it is measured by custom and nobody is charged beyond capacity; and that the heir bears the same duty if the father dies.