8. BREAST FEEDING

Mother is the repertoire of affection. She is love incarnate and the human form of patience. Mother gives milk from her breast. The child learns the alphabet of life from her face.
The Holy Quran enjoins that the child will be given breast milk as well as love and affection. It describes the woman as breast feeding mother. The mother bore man suffering hardship on hardship.
“We have enjoined on man to be dutiful to his parents. His mother bore him in weakness and hardship upon weakness and hardship and his weaning is two years. Give thanks to me and to your parents.” (31:14)
Mother carried him in her womb suffering a lot of hardship. “And we have enjoined on man to be dutiful to his parents. His mother bears him with hardship and she brings him forth with hardship and the bearing of him and the weaning of him is thirty months.” (46: 15)
The Quran teaches that there is no relationship closer than the relationship of breast feeding a child. When it describes the terrors of the Day of Judgment it says that it is the day on which the breast feeding mother forgets her child. This indicates the unimaginable chaos raging in the universe on that day.
"Oh man kind! fear your Lord and to be dutiful to him, verily, earthquake of the hour is a terrible thing. The day, you shall see it, every nursing mother will forget her nursling and every pregnant will drop her load.” (22: 1,2)
In the view of the Quran breast feeding is as important as giving birth to the child. It gives equal position to both the mothers who gives birth and who feeds breast  milk. The relation that exists between the (foster) mother who breast feeds the child is as good as the relation between the mother who has given birth to him. Therefore, in Islam one's relation with the real mother and the foster mother is not different. While explaining the permitted conjugal  relation the Quran says: “Forbidden to you (for marriage) are your mother, your daughters, your sisters, your father's sister, your mother's sisters, your brother's daughters, your foster mothers who gave you suck, your foster milk suckling sisters, your wive's mothers, your step daughters under your guardianship.” (4: 23)
In this context the Quran includes in the same category both the mothers ie. the mother who has given birth to the child and the mother who breast- feeds the child, and includes the sisters also in the same category. All these make clear the importance Islam attaches to breast feeding.
The Quran views the breast feeding as an inescapable obligation. That is why the Holy Quran has enjoined to pay remuneration to the mother who breast feeds the child, if she is divorced.
“Then if they give suck to the children for you, give them their due payment and let each of you accept the advice of the other in a just way.” (65: 6)
The Quran instructs that the period of breast feeding is two years for a child. Allah says about the divorced. If the father of the child wishes that the child must be breast fed for the whole period of two years mother should do so. The father shall be obliged to meet the expenses of food and cloth. But nobody is charged to spend more than what he can spend. The mother should not be punished for the reason that the child is not his.
"The mothers shall give suck to their children for two whole years (that is) for those parents who desire to complete the term of suckling, but the father of the child shall bear the cost of mother's food and clothing on a reasonable basis. No person shall have a burden laid on his greater than he can been. No parent shall be treated unfairly on account of her/his child. And on the father's heir is incumbent the like of that. If they both decide on weaning, by mutual consent and after due consultation, there is no sin on them. And if you decide on foster-suckling mother for your children, there is no sin on you. Provided you pay (the mother) what you agreed on reasonable basis.” (2: 233)
When a mother feeds the child with breast milk, she is not only giving nutrition to the baby for its sustenance, but also keeping before him the world of compassion open. Who can decipher the emotions reflected on the face of a mother who suckles the child with presence of mind, in the natural way. Words are inadequate for explaining it.
But, now-a-days, everything has turned upside down because we are living in a world of commercial culture. Everything has been commercialized. Everything is decided on a profit-loss basis. Therefore in our world, digits dominate. Even the mother who ought to be the perennial source of love and compassion has been dominated by this. The decision as to whether the child which has been shaped in her womb is to be born, and whether it is to be grown outside the womb etc. are questions to be settled by calculating the profit and loss.
The lust which is an outcome of the commercial culture has extinguished the compassion in the heart of the mother. The compassion and affection even in the heart of women has dried up as if it were in a desert. Therefore the mother who watches the tele-serial hates the screaming baby. Even if she gives him breast milk it is rather mechanically administered without any affection!
If she has to wash the baby, it is done rather mechanically, like a mechanic who polishes the machine without any human feelings. Her sentiments are always with the character in the tele film.
There are women who do not breast feed their children for fear that it would erode their beauty. In the contemporary society there are a good number of women who entrust their babies to nurses, who will feed them with artificial milk/dry milk. Ensuring safety and security of the baby is the natural obligation of the mother. Severing a woman from such an obligation will only help develop a lot of problems related to it. One of the reasons for the emotional impudence and behavioural abnormality is that women have been severed from the position of motherhood. Mikhail  Gorbechev has explained in his 'Peristroika' how the Soviet Union declined herself by keeping women away from the central position she had been holding for 70 years. He said that the Soviet Society had failed in considering special rights claimed by their women as mothers and heads of the family with the inescapable responsibility of educating the children. They didn't find time to do daily chores at home such as keeping home, bringing up children, developing a happy family atmosphere etc. because of their involvement in scientific research, working in production centres and manufacturing units, participating in creative work etc. The main reason of many of our problems is weakening family relations, and cold attitude towards eating food, and cold approach towards fulfilling the familial obligations. They realised that in all matters women should be made equal to men.