CAIRO: The Administrative Court annulled Al-Azhar’s disciplinary committee’s decision to expel Ezzat Attiya, president of the hadith department at the university, after he issued a controversial fatwa concerning breastfeeding in 2007.
“No one can argue with a court order .we respect the Administrative Court and follow its orders without thinking twice, said Sheikh Fawzy El-Zefzaf, head of the religions dialogue committee at Al-Azhar.
Attiya was expelled in 2007 when he suggested that symbolic breastfeeding could be a way around strict segregation of males and females. He had drawn on Islamic traditions which forbid sexual relations between a man and a woman who has breastfed him.
However, the court’s ruling did not come as a surprise to Sheikh Mahmoud Ashour, former deputy of Al-Azhar and member of the Islamic Research Center.
“This is only natural . I was sure that this was going to be the court’s decision, Ashour said, “Attiya didn’t make anything up, it is stated in the fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence) books and it’s a topic of debate among Islamic scholars with some supporting it and others opposing it, he explained.
Both clerics agree that Attiya is an exceptional teacher and speaker. “Attiya is a great teacher and is well educated, informed and knowledgeable, plus he is a great speaker at lectures and discussions so he is always a plus to Al-Azhar University, said Ashour.
In 2007 when the disciplinary committee had made its decision, both Islamic thinker Gamal El-Banna and Sheikh Khalid El-Gindy condemned the fatwa but maintained that Attiya shouldn’t have been expelled.
Attiya first made his statement regarding the issue on Al-Arabiya, a Dubai-based news channel, where he said that that after five breastfeeding sessions the man becomes a symbolic relative of the woman and the two were allowed to be alone together and the women could remove her headscarf in his presence.
The statement has caused a media frenzy and an uproar from Islamic scholars forcing Attiya to issue a retraction and apology. In his apology, Attiya stated that breastfeeding a male colleague at work is reserved only for a special situation and that only a minority of scholars had supported this position.
