Family Planning and Islam

by Khalid Farooq Akbar

Is birth control permissible in Islam?

A Muslim has three sources of knowledge to obtain answers to the questions pertaining to various aspects of human life. These sources are:

1. The Holy Qur'an;

2. Sayings (hadith) and acts (Sunnah) of the Holy Prophet (pbuh); and

3. The views of the leaders of juristic schools qualified to interpret the teachings of Islam.

1. The Holy Qur'an

No Qur'anic text forbids prevention of conception. There are, however, some Qur'anic verses which prohibit infanticide and these are used by some Muslims to discourage birth control.

But contraception does not amount to killing a human being. These verses in fact were revealed to forbid the pre-Islamic Arab practice of killing or burying alive a newborn child (particularly a girl) on account of the parents' poverty or to refrain from having a female child. Perhaps in those days, people did not know safe methods of contraception and early abortion.

2. Hadith

The principle of preventing conception was accepted in those sayings of the Prophet (pbuh) which allowed some of his followers to practice 'azl or coitus interruptus. These ahadithembodied the earliest legal reasoning of Muslims on contraception and were essential instruments of argument in later Islamic thought on contraception. There is a sufficient number of ahadith on contraception. The most commonly quoted ones are the following. [5]

1. According to Jabir, "We used to practise 'azl in the Prophet's (pbuh) lifetime while the Qur'an was being revealed." There is another version of the same hadith, "We used to practise coitus interruptus during the Prophet's (pbuh) lifetime. News of this reached him and he did not forbid us."

2. According to Jabir, "A man came to the Prophet (pbuh) and said, 'I have a slave girl, and we need her as a servant and around the palmgroves. I have sex with her, but I am afraid of her becoming pregnant.' The Prophet (pbuh) said, 'Practice 'azl with her if you so wish, for she will receive what has been predestined for her.'"

3. According to Abu Sa'id, "We rode out with the Prophet (pbuh) to raid Banu al-Mustaliq and captured some female prisoners . . . we desired women and abstinence became hard. [But] we wanted to practise 'azl; and asked the Prophet (pbuh) about it. He said, 'You do not have to hesitate, for God has predestined what is to be created until the judgement day.'"

4. According to Abu Sa'id, "The Jews say that coitus interruptus is minor infanticide, and the Prophet (pbuh) answered, 'The Jews lie, for if God wanted to create something, no one can avert it (or divert Him).'"

5. According to 'Umar Ibn Khattab, "The Prophet (pbuh) forbade the practice of 'azl with a free woman except with her permission."

6. According to Anas, "A man asked the Prophet (pbuh) about 'azl and the Prophet (pbuh) said, 'Even if you spill a seed from which a child was meant to be born on a rock, God will bring forth from that rock a child.'"

7. According to Judhamah bint Wahb, "I was there when the Prophet (pbuh) was with a group saying, "I was about to prohibit the ghila (intercourse with a woman in lactation) but I observed the Byzantines and the Persians, and saw them do it, and their children were not harmed.' They asked him about coitus interruptus, and the Prophet (pbuh) replied, 'It is a hidden infanticide . . .'"

These ahadith reflect two points: first that the Prophet (pbuh) knew about the practice and did not prohibit it (no. 1), and second, that the Prophet (pbuh) himself permitted the practice (no. 2 & 3).

The hadith from Judhamah (no.7) was an approximation to the homicide traditions of the Jewish and Christian traditions. This hadith provided support for Ibn Hazm's minority view that'azl was prohibited by the Prophet (pbuh). But medieval jurists used the hadith about the Jews (no. 4) to refute the argument for prohibition. They claimed that how the Prophet (pbuh) could have maintained that the Jews lied by calling 'azl akin to infanticide and then have maintained the same opinion himself. [6]

Views of medieval Muslim jurists

Muslim jurists do not speak with one voice on the question of birth prevention, on it's lawfulness, on conditions for practice and on methods that may be used. Muslim jurists determine the lawfulness of an act on the basis of a method which comprises four principles or sources (usul). Two of these (Qur'an and Sunnah) are religious sources. The other two principles include analogical reasoning (qiyas) and the consensus of the 'ulama (ijma').

The most detailed analysis of Islamic permission of contraception was made by the great leader of the Shafi'i School of jurism, al-Ghazzali (1058-1111). He discussed this issue in his great work, Ihya' 'ulum al-Din (The revival of Religious Sciences), in the chapter on biology in religion. [7]

Al-Ghazzali stated that there was no basis for prohibiting 'azl. For prohibition in Islam was possible only by adducing an original text (nass, an explicit provision in the Qur'an or hadith) or by analogy with a given text. In the case of contraception, there was no such text, nor was there any principle on which to base prohibition.

In his view, coitus interruptus was permitted absolutely (mubah) and this permission could be ratified by analogical reasoning. A man could refrain from marriage; or marry but abstain from mating or have sexual mating but abstain from ejaculation inside the vagina--'azl. Although it was better to marry, have intercourse, and have ejaculation inside the vagina, abstention from these was by no means forbidden or unlawful. [8]

Al-Ghazzali made a distinction between infanticide and contraception. He said that a child could not be formed merely by the emission of the spermatic fluid, but by the settling of semen in the woman's womb; for children were not created by the man's semen alone but of both parents together. So contraception could not be compared with infanticide which was the killing of an existing being while contraception was different.

In the process of contraception, the two (male and female) emissions are analogous to two elements, 'offer' (ijab) and 'acceptance' (qabul) which are components of a legal contract in Islamic law. Someone who submits an offer and then withdraws it before the other party accepts it is not guilty of any violation, for a contract does not come into existence before acceptance. In the same manner, there is no real difference between the man's emission or retention of the semen unless it actually mixes with the woman's 'semen'.

Al-Ghazzali classified earlier and contemporary opinions into three groups:

1. Unconditional permission for 'azl;

2. Permission if the wife consents but prohibition if she does not. This is the view of Hanbali and Maliki groups, of Zaydiyah scholars and of 'Ibadites, survivors of the Kharijite sect. According to some Hanafi scholars, this condition does not apply if the husband is convinced that the child will grow in an unhealthy moral environment.

3. Complete prohibition, a view expressed by Ibn Hazm and his followers of the Zahiriyah School. [9]

Al-Ghazzali accepts prevention or contraception if the motive for the act is any of these: (1) a desire to preserve a woman's beauty or her health, or save her life; (2) desire to avoid financial hardship and embarrassment; (3) avoidance of other domestic problems caused by a large family. He did not accept avoidance of female birth as a legitimate motive for contraception.

Another great scholar, Ibn Taymiyah, discussed Divine providence, procreation and contraception (in this way) in the early fourteenth century. He argues, "Allah creates children and other animals in the womb by willing the meeting of parents in intercourse, and the two semens in the womb. A man is a fool who says, 'I shall depend on God and not approach my wife and if it is willed that I be granted a child I will be given one, otherwise not and there is no need for intercourse.' This is very different from having intercourse and practising withdrawal, for withdrawal does not prevent pregnancy if God wills a pregnancy to occur, because there can be involuntary pre-emission of semen." [10]

In all the early Muslim scholars, only one jurist rejected 'azl absolutely. This was the Spaniard, Ibn Hazm (994-1063) who belonged to the Zahiriyah School of jurism which was a short-lived movement. Ibn Hazm argued that numerous permissive ahadith were early and reflected the fact that in Islam everything was lawful until the Prophet (pbuh) prohibited it specifically. He based his argument on the hadith quoted by Judhamah bint Wahb. [11]

Ibn Hazm claimed that the Prophet (pbuh) had abrogated these permissive ahadith when he later said that 'azl was 'hidden infanticide.' Since the Qur'an prohibits infanticide in the strongest possible terms, and the Prophet (pbuh) called coitus interruptus hidden infanticide, he maintained that 'azl was prohibited also.

The views of Ibn Hazm were strongly opposed by later jurists. The most notable of these was the Hanbali scholar, Ibn Qayyim al-Jawziyyah (1291-1351), who proved 'azl as permissible in his famous work, Zad al-Ma'ad. Ibn Qayyim showed that the claim of Ibn Hazm required an exact historical dating to prove that the abrogating hadith was subsequent to the 'permissive' hadith and that such an exact dating was impossible. [12] He added that, in any case, it was generally agreed in the Islamic law that infanticide applied only after the foetus was formed and the child born. Infanticide thus defined was prohibited, coitus interruptus was clearly something else.

Some other scholars of the Prophet's (pbuh) tradition, like Ibn Majah and Ahmad, agreed that coitus interruptus was permitted by the Prophet (pbuh). [13]

This in brief is the review of juristic opinion about contraception. There is no doubt that the earliest followers of the Prophet (pbuh) practised 'azl. This practice was within his knowledge and he did not forbid it.a

1.      Family Planning Association of Pakistan, The Invisible Threat (1990), p. 20. 
2.      Aziz, Q., "Pakistan and the Demographic Challenge," The Pakistan Times, April 26, 1991. 
3.      See No. 1 above. 
4.      Hassan, I., "Population Planning," The News, Nov. 15, 1992. 
5.      Wensinck, A.J., Hand Book of Early Muhammadan Tradition (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1960), p. 112. 
6.      Musallam, B.F., Sex and Society in Islam (Cambridge University Press, 1983) p. 176. 
7.      Al-Ghazzali, Ihya' Ulum al-Din, Al Matba al-Azhariyya al-Misriyya (Cairo, 1302 A.H.). 
8.   Ibid. 
9.      Haq, A.J., 'An Interview with Grand Mufti of Egypt,' Populi II:2, 1984. 
10.     Ibn Taymiyah, Al-Fatawa al-Kubra, 5 vols. (Cairo: Dar al-Kutb al-Haditha, 1966). 
11.     Ibn Hazm, Al-Muhalla,, 11 vols. in 8, Cairo, 1352 A.H. 
12.     Ibn Qayyim, Bada'i al-Fawa'id, 4 vols., (Beirut: Dar-Al-Kitab al Arabi, n.d.). 
13.     Khan, A.H., 1987, Zabate Tauleed Key Baray Mein Islami Nazariyat (in Urdu), Population Welfare Division, Government of Pakistan, 1987.