DUBAI (AlArabiya.net)
Egypt's Al-Azhar University has dismissed the Islamic lecturer who caused an uproar by saying that women should breastfeed their male co-workers to be able to stay alone together, press reports said on Monday.
Dr. Ezzat Atiya, the head of Azhar's Hadith Department, had retracted his controversial "adult breastfeeding" fatwa (Islamic ruling) in May after being threatened with disciplinary action by the university.
But Azhar's Disciplinary Board, which came to this decision after a month of heated debate, decreed that the fatwa was punishable by dismissal for the upheaval it caused all over the Arab and Muslim world, as well as on the international level.
Atiya made the headlines after his highly controversial Fatwa was reported by Al-Arabiya.net in May.
“Breastfeeding an adult man five times makes it legal for the woman to sit alone with that man at a closed workplace. This way, the woman can take off her veil in front of her work-mate without being in violation of Islamic rulings,” Atiya said.
Atiya based his ruling on an incident that took place at the early days of Islam, over 14 centuries ago. The incident happened immediately after adoption was prohibited by Islam and Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) ruled that a woman should breastfeed her foster son so as to be able to receive him at home like her own son.
Atiya said that as long as Prophet Muhammad's ruling was not contested through a Quranic verse, then “we, Muslims, should follow it”.
Atiya later signed a written statement of apology and retraction of the fatwa that was circulated among Azhar's students and staff and was also published by the Egyptian media.
The fatwa reinforced an already disparaging stereotype of Islam and made Muslims the laughing stock of the world. It also became an excuse for men to harass girls in the street, according to Egyptian daily Al-Ahram.
The board found that Ateya was not authorized to issue fatwas as only expert scholars and committees in Azhar's Dar al-Iftaa (Department of Fatwa) can rule on whether a matter is illicit or not for Muslims.
Ateya's contradictory statements made things worse. He insisted on the validity of his fatwa even after his apology and retraction.
Many leading scholars of Islam say adult breastfeeding is permissible in exceptional cases only.
(Translated from Arabic by Sonia Farid). |
