Family Planning: Birth Control in Islam

Before this discussion is brought to an end, some further important aspects of the family life are noteworthy. These relate to abortion and the use of contraceptives, both of which may be grouped under the concept of family planning or birth control.

The problem has aroused very keen interest among the contemporary students of the family as well as “social engineers” who are concerned about the “population explosion.”

This is a relatively modern phenomenon which has arisen as a result of several interrelated factors. However, classical Muslim scholars addressed themselves to the problem of abortion and contraception for what appears to have been personal, private, or academic reasons rather than demographic or population crises.

Their primary concern was with the lawfulness or unlawfulness of these practices. In response to certain pressing questions by some concerned Muslims, a prominent contemporary authority has summarized the classical religious doctrine in the following way.

First, it is unanimously agreed that abortion after the “quickening of the embryo” is religiously forbidden and legally punishable; if the fetus emerges alive, the offender shall pay a full blood wit; otherwise, a lesser fine is imposed. In either case, the act is displeasing to God, and the offender will be subject to punishment in the future life.

The quickening of the embryo is definitely established by the end of the fourth month after conception.

Secondly, if it becomes certain that abortion is the only way to save the life of an endangered mother, then abortion is lawful, according to the general rule of recourse to the “lesser evil.” wal

But, thirdly, jurists disagree with respect to abortion during the first four months of conception. Some hold it lawful on the ground that it entails no destruction of any real human life, since quickening of the embryo is ascertained only after four months.

Others forbid it because it is still a destruction of life in some form, a killing of what is a potential self.¹³¹

With respect to family planning, the statement continues, a distinction must be made between the policy of limiting reproduction and the policy of planning it, that is, between societal compulsory laws and individual voluntary measures.

Limiting reproduction by way of making compulsory indiscriminate legislations to limit procreation to an absolute minimum or maximum is contrary to the law of God, nature, and human reason.

But family planning by way of voluntary, individual measures to space or regulate the family size for economic or health reasons is lawful. It is contrary neither to the law of God nor to nature. In fact, Islamic law seems to urge this kind of family planning.

First, the Qur’an extends the lactation- nursing period up to two full years. But the Prophet warned against suckling the child by its pregnant mother. The two facts together appear to call for some checks on unregulated conception and indirectly require the use of some measures of contraception.

Secondly, jurists agree that it is lawful for married people to prevent conception, by mutual consent, temporarily or permanently, if the prospective children are likely to be disposed to any hereditary disease of any parent.¹³²

It may be interesting to note that this position is not unanimously adopted by contemporary Muslim scholars. Nor is the use of contraceptives a general practice. However, there seems to be a slow but growing acceptance of both the doctrine and the modern practice among Muslims of all walks of life.

The reasons for this change are many and varied. The religious doctrine itself is being reinterpreted by some and revived by others. In recent decades, certain religious authorities hesitated to recommend family planning as a general public policy, even though they themselves made use of it privately.

What was quietly practiced is now advocated publicly on a large scale. Economic and political pressures are increasingly felt. The international concern over the population explosion is brought closer to the attention of many Muslim leaders and commoners alike.

Central political directives and governmental regulations are reaching the masses in a relatively more systematic and persistent way. The declining occurrence of epidemic diseases seems to have introduced new elements into population growth.

Some of the traditional pro-natality factors are becoming less focal in Muslim life. However, it seems somewhat paradoxical that Muslims, whose religion is not opposed in principle to family planning— as we have seen—are among the peoples with the highest birth rates.

Kirk has recently observed that among contemporary Muslims “natality (1) is almost universally high, (2) shows no evidence of important trends over time, and (3) is generally higher than that of neighboring peoples of other major religions.”

Islam’s ideologically neutral or even somewhat favorable attitude to family planning seems to have been overweighed by what Kirk calls “general factors” and “special Muslim features” favoring high birth rates. The basic general

factors are the following:

(a) Sons are valued for many purposes;

(b) Islam shares with other religions the injunction to marry and multiply, (c) Islam has a strong tradition of military conquest and cultural domination; (d). Islam has a history of conflict with and resistance to the West, with which Muslims identify the techniques and philosophy of birth control and family planning; (e) Muslims share with other religions some important fatalistic themes, e.g., God’s care, provision, natural birth, etc.

Under the special features he includes the following:

(a) marriage institutions with polygyny, easy divorce, and early marriages, (b) emphasis on sexuality and opposition to celibacy, and (c) women’s inferior position, in which they marry young, are illiterate, and have no voice in family affairs.

These three factors affect natality through the proportion of the reproductive life spent in marital unions, and within such unions the practices determining exposure to pregnancy.¹³⁴

While these observations may be generally accurate and valid, they seem to draw from the historical traditional patterns rather than from the contemporary scene. It may be true that many Muslims still live in the past and cling to such traditional patterns. It may also be true that some of them suspect the modern techniques of contraception as products of the “infidel pagan West.”

But the greatest difficulty of Muslims in this regard seems to be ignorance or unawareness. There are many who are not conscious of any national or international population problems, or who are unaware of any modern techniques of contraception, or who do not know how to obtain them, much less to apply them effectively.

Likewise, there are those who do not know where religion stands on the matter. In fact, all this may be inferred from Kirk’s presentation of the religious doctrine approving birth control and from his concluding summary that “the traditional Islamic way of life is culturally favorable to high natality in the absence of voluntary restriction of births within marriage.” ¹³⁵

REFERENCES

^131. Shaltut (1), pp. 263-5; cf. Kirk, p. 575.

^132. Ib id . pp. 266-70.

^133. Kirk, pp. 567-8.

^134. Ib id . pp. 569-71.

^135. Ib id . pp. 574-5.