Muslim women breastfeed male co-workers--do you think it is effective policy (hehe)?

Ok,when I first read this I thought it was nuts. The main reason is that usually in societies where women are covered something like this would be uber stimulating. Now, in some cultures where women don't wear much clothing, breasts are viewed as tools, not always objects of desire. If you aren't even used to seeing a woman's legs, is BREAST FEEDING going to be a NON-SEXUAL event? Now really!!

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21803296-2...

Fatwa promotes adult breastfeeding Font Size: Decrease Increase Print Page: Print Abraham Rabinovich, Jerusalem | May 28, 2007
A RELIGIOUS ruling by an Islamic scholar permitting women to breastfeed adults with whom they work has led to his suspension this month from al-Azhar University in Cairo, the world's leading Sunni university.

Izzat Atiyaa had issued a fatwa, or religious ruling, offering his bold suggestion as a way around the prohibition in Islamic religious law against a woman working in private premises with a man who was not her close relative. Breastfeeding, he argued, would create a familial relationship under Islamic law.

Dr Atiyaa explained to the Egyptian newspaper al-Watani al-Yawm that: "A man and a woman who are alone together are not (necessarily) having sex but this possibility exists and breastfeeding provides a solution to this problem (by) transforming the bestial relationship between two people into a religious relationship based on (religious) duties."

In Islamic tradition, breastfeeding at infancy establishes a degree of familial relationship between nurse and child even if there is no biological relationship.

Dr Atiyaa argued in his fatwa that if an adult male was nursed by a female co-worker it would likewise establish a familial bond that would permit them to work side by side without raising suspicion of illicit sex.

Dr Atiyaa headed al-Azhar University's department dealing with hadith - oral tradition, outside the Koran, attributed to the teachings of the prophet Mohammed. He said he had based his ruling on one such tradition according to which, at the Prophet's order, a man named Salem was breastfed by the wife of another disciple.

"The fact that the hadith regarding the breastfeeding of an adult is inconceivable to the mind does not make it invalid," Dr Atiyaa said, in defending his ruling. "Rejecting it is tantamount to questioning the Prophet's tradition."

Nevertheless, his ruling evoked almost universal rejection among Muslim scholars and in the popular Egyptian press. Al-Azhar University formed a committee of hadith experts, who dismissed his ruling, and the university administration ordered him to publish a retraction. He complied.

However, his apology was deemed insufficient by the head of the al-Azhar Supreme Council, Sheik Muhammed Sayyid Tantawi, a widely respected figure who is the highest spiritual authority in Sunni Islam.

"There is enough chaos with all the unsupervised fatwas (published) on satellite channels," the sheik said. "We will never permit this chaos to spread to the religious establishment and to al-Azhar." Following his remarks, the university decided to suspend Dr Atiyaa, pending further investigation.

The breastfeeding fatwa moved even some conservative Muslims to attempt to draw a line between ancient tradition and modern life.

Sayyid Askar, an Egyptian politician belonging to the Muslim Brotherhood and a former member of the Academy of Islamic Studies, said the hadith regarding Salem was authentic but irrelevant