Infants, Parents and Wet Nurses: Medieval Islamic Views on Breastfeeding and Their Social Implications

Abstract

This volume examines early Islamic theories and practices of breastfeeding, their long-term social implications and their impact on the lives of women and children. In the light of the impediments to marriage created, according to Islamic law, by nonmaternal breastfeeding, the author also explores the role they have played in wider circles of social life: how they influenced the way relations between different families were established, reduced the occurence of endogamous marriages, and created semiprivate spaces. This is the first comprehensive research, within western Islamology, devoted to the subject, serving as it were as a link between Women's History and History of Childhood. It is based on a wide range of religious sources - from Qur'an, Qur'an exegesis, through hadith to legal writings - as well as on medieval Arabic medical compilations.

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