32 Women and the Transmission of Religious Knowledge in Islam woman named Sahla bint Suhayl to give her breast milk to Salim, her adopted son, who had already reached adulthood. Muhammad is said to have allowed this because Sahla sensed some discomfort on the part of her husband when Salim visited their home. Variants of the tradition explain that Sahla’s husband felt uneasy about Salim’s visits to their home after the revelation of the Qur’anic verse 33:4, which emphasized that adopted sons are not like real sons in terms of regulations pertaining to marriage. However, by giving him a requisite amount of her breast milk, she could render him among the men forbidden to her for marriage, and he would be able to visit her freely. Given the indicators from the Qur’an and hadith, Muslim jurists immersed themselves in the intricacies of this rather complex conundrum. In Much ink was spilled over questions such as: How much milk must be transferred before the bond is established? Does the testimony of one woman suffice to establish that nursing occurred between a woman and a boy (who was not her son by birth) ? Does the transfer of breast milk that is not for the purpose of nourishment establish foster kinship? Resolving these questions was crucial for Muslim cultures in which daily interactions were regulated and circumscribed according to kinship networks, those established by blood relations as well as foster parentage. After the death of Muhammad, ‘A’isha understood the Sahla hadith to be a general one applicable to her as well as to the other wives. Through rida ‘ al-kabir, she reasoned, men could be transferred to the mahram category and permitted to visit women with whom they had established foster kinship through nursing. Several reports suggest that ‘A’isha, being in high demand for her religious knowledge, used the Sahla tradition as a validity of rida ‘ al-kabir. It appears that a consensus that rida ‘ al-kabir does not establish mahram bonds was reached in the early stages of legal development. Ibn Hazm (d. 456/ 1064) is among the few classical jurists who argue for the practice as a legitimate means for creating foster relationships: see ‘All b. Ahmad b. Hazm, al-Muhalla (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyya), 10:202-12. For the consensus, see Malik, al-Muwatta ’, 2:123-26; al-Shafi‘I, Kitab al-Umm (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyya, 1993), 5:47-49; and ‘Abd Allah b. Ahmad b. Qudama (d. 620/1223), al-Mughni (Beirut: Dar al-Kutub al-‘Ilmiyya, 1994), 6:401-2. This practice drew renewed attention when a modern Egyptian mufti issued a ruling that rida ‘ al-kabir could be used to mitigate discomfort from male-female interactions in the workplace. For a contemporary Western perspective on this incident, see the article by Michael Slackman, “A Compass That Can Clash with Modern Life,” New York Times , June 12, 2007. The modern Egyptian ruling was widely decried and, as such, lacks currency. 45 See, for example, Malik, al-Muwatta ’, 2:123-24, for a report connecting the Prophet’s fatwa in Sahla’s case to the revelation of Qur’an, 33:4. 46 See Ibn Qudama, al-Mughni , 6:357-75, for a thorough discussion of issues related to nursing.