PAKISTAN’S Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) finally opened the door to human milk banks in Sindh by endorsing the idea in principle but directing it move forward only under strict, Sharia-compliant legislation. Neonatal experts greet the ruling as overdue validation. They call it a major step towards ensuring preterm, high-risk infants receive donor milk when a mother’s own is not available, improving their survival chances. The endorsement aligns science with the principles of faith.

The question now is whether the project will succeed, and serve as a model for other provinces to adopt. The decision, taken at the CII’s 243rd meeting in Islamabad in September, comes more than a year after Pakistan’s first human milk bank — launched in 2023 by the Sindh Institute of Child Health and Neonatology in collaboration with Unicef in Karachi — was suspended just months later amid religious objections and public criticism.

It happened after a leading seminary, Jamia Darul Uloom, withdrew an initial fatwa, and the case moved to the CII. The core concern was milk-kinship, or raza’at. In Islamic law, feeding a child with another woman’s milk creates a familial bond that shapes future marriage rules.

For the Karachi milk bank to........

© Dawn