The Fatwa was in a way revoked. Al-Azhar suspended Dr. Ezzat Attiya following his controversial adult-breastfeeding Fatwa. The notorious Fatwa gained fame in no time, with widespread criticism. Stupid, idiotic, insulting, funny, hilarious, offensive, backwards, and many others were familiar words when referring to the Fatwa and the cleric who promoted it.

Suspending Attiya or expelling him, although does stand to show Al-Azhar’s disagreement of such a Fatwa, does little to solve a major problem. Yes, there is a problem that is far beyond a creative Mufti, far beyond someone who was high and came up with an inspired solution, and far beyond this very Fatwa.

Alayam reported that the majority of clerics unanimously believe that the Hadith appearing in both Sahih Moslim and Bukhari about breastfeeding adults – is Sahih (authentic), yet disagree on the implication of that on their Fatwas. “Unpracticed” was the license this Hadith gave to Muslims for the past 1400 years. Opinions range from “a specific license given to the women in the Hadith for a particular case” to “a Sahih Hadith with an opinion that conflicts the majority of Muslim clerics, hence left unpracticed”.

Dr. Attiya did not bring something new, he did not bring something that did not exist, and he did not bring something from a disputed source. He pointed to a Hadith that, according to Hadith classification, is considered as authentic. If such it was categorized, then why was he suspended and attacked, for working accordingly? And why is it that the majority of Muslim clerics have an opinion that counters an authentic Hadith?

The problem lies in the classification of Hadiths per se, our refusal to discuss or tackle the problem of such Hadiths, still insisting on their authenticity on one hand, and struggling with the consequences on the other, as people start suggesting we practice the message of an authentic Hadith. Why not, if it was authentic? Yet the common sense of most people refuses to accept the unacceptable, not even through a feeding bottle.

Such a situation is not unexpected, when Chinese Whisper is the only way of passing on religion from a generation to another. Muslims have had a tendency of not critiquing Hadith texts, and what happened –at best- was to ignore them. The amount of Hadiths found today and their content is a clear indication that a lot of these are bogus, especially with Hadiths having contrary messages, or outrageous messages like breastfeeding adults.

Sticking to the scriptures is fine, but if that would lead us to losing the original message then it is time to wake up. It is high time we had a major reform and a fundamental change.

Video Text:

“I have conducted a search on several websites, about sexual relations amongst animals, and I have discovered that among many animals, if the male wants to mate with the female they go somewhere else. I mean, they don’t do it in front of all animals. In most cases this is done in front of the entire group, but in many cases there is a certain distancing. This is a matter of utmost importance. There is a nice story told by the Prophet Mohammed: In a group of monkeys, a female monkey mated with a female monkey, which was not the monkey that regularly mates her. He is not the monkey that she is used to. All the monkeys gathered and stoned the female monkey, when they saw her mating a monkey that is not her monkey. I am saying even though they are animals, and even though Allah does not judge them for their actions, there is a type of modesty in them. “

I am not a zoologist, but nowhere have I found such behaviour documented in biology books. More importantly, this methodology of devising Fatwa proofs is indeed interesting. I stopped for really long to look for the morale behind the story, “Act like monkeys?” Is it? How did the person narrating the story know the reason why the female monkey was being stoned? Was he living with the monkeys or did the monkeys tell him what has happened?  What if poor female monkey was being raped? What if she divorced her previous hubby? Of course, monkeys did not stone the male monkey for mating someone else's wife, but only stoned the unfaithful wife.

A research published in Current Biology shows that monkeys like porn and are willing to pay for it too. A male monkey would give up his juice to look at pictures of female monkey behinds. Why haven’t we seen any Shaikh claiming empirical proof on why watching porn is Halal and Islamically commendable? What about homosexual animals and those who masturbate?

It is saddening how proofs for some Sharia laws are being formulated; I would rather have them referred to as unexplained divine rules than hear someone use claimed monkey sex behaviour to back it up.