Blood, Sperm and the Embryo in Sunni Islam and in Mauritania: Milk Kinship, Descent and Medically Assisted Procreation

Abstract

Why does Sunni Islam forbid sperm donation and allow intraconjugal insemination for married couples? And why does Sunni Islam forbid human milk banks but allow blood banks? These contemporary questions can both be clarified by an analysis of the meanings of sperm, blood and milk in Sunni Islam. However, the creation of these substances, the relations between them, and what is at stake in their transmission are not explicitly formulated in the foundational Sunni Islamic texts 1 -the Qur'an, the Sunna, 2 Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) -but must be decoded and even reconstructed through an analysis of the sayings and the practices around these substances. Ancient Islamic texts will be supplemented by more recent sources, such as legal consultations (fatâwâ) for medically assisted procreation.The question of the prohibition of human milk banks leads to the concept of milk kinship. It is necessary, therefore, to turn our attention to this institution in

Milk Banks Through the Lens of Muslim Scholars: One Text in Two Contexts

“…36 Similar practices have been traced in Mauritanian society, especially among the Muslim Moors living in a region which has been Muslim for centuries. 37 Anthropological studies on Shī'ī Islam also prove the existence of such practice among Shī'ī Muslims. 38 Recently, Morgan Clarke (Cambridge University) in the course of his fieldwork in Lebanon and Syria also elaborated on the relevance of milk kinship in the social life of contemporary Muslims.…”

Religious and non-religious issues of medically assisted reproduction in France: sexuality, incest and descent

“…Although in Islamic jurisprudence, as in many other cultures and legislations, the father is presumed to be the mother's husband, the fact that the child comes from the father's sperm is decisive with respect to the representation of descent, as this substance constitutes the essential biological support of patrilineal descent (Fortier, 2001(Fortier, , 2007(Fortier, , 2018a).…”

“…The prohibition of procreation using a sperm donor in Sunni Islam shows that it is through the intersecting relation between social paternity and biological paternity that descent is constituted. The logic underlying this interdiction is completely in keeping with the logic of descent in Sunni Islam; if descent is socially defined, it is, in parallel, based on a biological principle, namely sperm, insofar as this substance is regarded as the vehicle of descent (Fortier, 2001(Fortier, , 2007.…”

Reinventing Love?

“…First, anthropologists working on the Arab world became increasingly interested in Islamic law under the aegis of Lawrence Rosen's (1984) studies on Morocco. Later, in the favourable context following the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo in 1994, interest grew in bioethical and reproductive health issues (Ali 2002;Fortier 2007Fortier , 2010Inhorn 1994Inhorn , 1996Maffi 2012). Almost concomitantly with Rosen's first publication on Moroccan legal courts, the anthropology of emotions gained increased significance in the United States (Lutz and Abu-Lughod 1990;Lutz and White 1986).…”