Spotlight: What is Milk-Kinship and How Did It Evolve Across the Arab World?

Library > Community Presentations

Presenter: Haneen Dajani

Delivered: Amman on May 7, 2023

Haneen Dajani takes a deep dive into milk-kinship; which is an Islamic belief that human milk creates a kinship between the breastfeeding woman and her nonbiological nursing infant (as well as the woman's biological nursing infants) prohibiting future marriages between "milk brothers and sisters".

Sources & Future References

• Milk siblingship, religious and secular: History, applications, and implications for practice - PubMed

• Islamic Beliefs About Milk Kinship and Donor Human Milk in the United States | American Academy of Pediatrics

• Wet Nurse or Milk Bank? Evolution in the Model of Human Lactation: New Challenges for the Islamic Population - PubMed

• Milk kinship in Islam. Substance, structure, history | Wiley Online Library

Note: All community presentations are prepared & presented by non-experts on the subject. They are sharing information in the hopes of spurring interest in that subject.

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About Afikra Community Presentations

Delivered and prepared by afikra Community members, the presentation’s goal is to showcase the presenter’s curiosity and research and share some knowledge on a ‎topic related to the Arab world’s histories and cultures. The presentation is the ‎culmination of the afikra coaching process to help identify a topic, find research, and develop the ‎presentation. afikra presentations come in two forms, a long question-driven afikra Feature, and a short afikra FWD with the purpose of sharing something interesting.