Analysis of Concepts related to women's Marital Status and Reproductive health Part-4 | Last Part

 Different Contraceptive Methods -  Objections of the jurists and their arguments - Women Health 

Analysis of Concepts related to women's Marital Status and Reproductive health Part-4 | Last Part

Use of contraceptive methods:

Islam does not forbid planning in special circumstances, whether using contraceptives or other appropriate methods of contraception.

Imam al-Ghazali, in his famous work, Ahyaa Uloom-ud-Din ([41]), discusses family planning and contraceptive precautions, summarizing that it is permissible to take contraceptive precautions in the following cases:

1. When a person has many children and he is not able to perform his training duties properly.

2. When a woman is weak, she can no longer bear the hardships of pregnancy. However, in our time, it is not possible for women who have had major surgeries to have more children if they do not take contraceptive measures and as a result there is a risk that They lose their lives and their children lose their mother's affection and training.

3. When a woman is constantly engaged in pregnancy and there is no way for a man to fulfill his desire.

4. When the husband is poor and cannot support the children.

5. When a woman fears that having too many children will affect her beauty and deprive her of her husband's attention.

Since the Qur'an and Sunnah have neither commanded nor prohibited taking contraceptive measures, the jurists of Islam and the Imams of Mujtahidin have taken different views arguing from it.

The views of the jurists in this regard and their arguments are as follows:

1. It is not permissible to take any precautionary measures which are contraindicated. This is the view of the people of Zahir. And if the owner has children, then he gets some rights which are against the interests of the owner. Their argument is that according to the narration of Hazrat Jabir bin Abdullah, a man presented to the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) that he had a slave girl who worked for him and had sexual relations with him. He does not want her to have children with him, so he removes her from her so that the pregnancy does not stop.

The Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) did not forbid this action, but he said that the soul which is to come into existence is bound to come. The fact is that this hadith does not mean that there is no point in taking precautionary measures against abortion or contraception. This natural principle is in place that the results of the way a person works are manifested accordingly.

The meaning of the Holy Prophet's instruction is that ejaculation is not a definite and final measure, the adoption of which is one hundred percent satisfied that the pregnancy will no longer be declared, because of the slight delay, negligence or carelessness of the pregnancy. It can be a cause and even if it happens, it should not be considered that the woman has brought that pregnancy from outside, lest you call it wicked, but to think that despite a thousand precautions, this is what was written in the destiny which is being fulfilled.

The second objection to the precautionary measure is that it is the murder of a soul and is mentioned in the Qur'an al-Hakim:

وَلَا تَقْتُلُوا َْوْلَادَكُمْ خَشْيَةَ إِمْلَاقٍ. [42]

"Don't kill your children for fear of poverty."

Imam al-Ghazali writes that the meaning of murder is to take away the life of a living person.

As a precautionary measure, if an object is not found to exist, then the interpretation of killing it or snatching life from it is completely wrong. Murder has been committed or when a woman stops menstruating, then intercourse between husband and wife will be considered as murder, because there is no possibility of having children as a result of this intercourse. None of the scholars called the precautionary measures as murder of children.

The third objection to precautions is that the Qur'an states:

وَمَا مِنْ دَابَّةٍ فِي الْأَرْضِ ِلَّا عَلَى اللَّهِ رِزْقُهَا. ([43])

"There isn't any living thing on earth whose sustenance doesn't depend upon God."

Therefore, taking precautionary measures due to poverty is in fact a lack of faith and certainty about the provision of Allah.

But this interpretation of the above verse is not correct, so to be responsible for the sustenance of Allah means that all the resources have been created by the sustenance of Allah. By no means that do i need to convey that i like to recommend for the mother to be inactive.

All the arguments that precautionary measures are haraam or useless have no weight and are the result of misinterpretation of verses and hadiths.

2. It is absolutely permissible to use family planning methods. The evidence for this is the hadith of Sahih Bukhari:

Kana nazal wal wahi yanzal. ([44])

The Companions say that what we used to do was that the revelation of the Qur'an was going on at that time. This is the reason why you forbid it. According to the description of Imam Bayhaqi, Saad bin Abi Waqas, Abu Ayyub Ansari, Zaid bin Thabit, Hazrat Umar and Hazrat Ali among the Companions consider it permissible. This is the religion of Imam Malik and Imam Shafi'i.

3. Family planning is permissible but only if both spouses agree to it. This is the opinion of Hanafi jurists. They say that since having children is an equal right of both spouses, it is not permissible for one party to deprive the other party of children without the consent of the other party.

Contemporary mujtahids have preferred this view.

Abortion:

An important question regarding women's reproductive health is whether abortion is permissible. If so, in what cases and under what circumstances?

Scholars have two different views on the legitimacy and illegitimacy of abortion. The majority of scholars and imams are of the opinion that abortion without permission is not permissible.

Imam al-Ghazali and Imam Ibn Taymiyyah are of the opinion that when a woman is found pregnant in her womb, there is life in her, because life comes into being only from life, therefore it is not right to abort her at any time.

The argument of the majority of scholars is that although there are signs of life in pregnancy from the very beginning, but the soul in which the Qur'an has said: It is blown at the end of the day.

When Hazrat Ali was asked about this issue, he said that according to the Qur'an, it is not permissible to abort a pregnancy when it enters the seventh stage and those seven stages are in these verses:

وَلَقَدْ خَلَقْنَا الْإِنْسَانَ مِنْ سُلَالَةٍ مِنْ طِينٍ، ثُمَّ جَعَلْنَاهُ نُطْفَةً فِي قَرَارٍ مَكِينٍ، ثُمَّ خَلَقْنَا النُّطْفَةَ عَلَقَةً فَخَلَقْنَا الْعَلَقَةَ مُضْغَةً فَخَلَقْنَا الْمُضْغَةَ عِظَامًا فَكَسَوْنَا الْعِظَامَ لَحْمًا ثُمَّ أَنْشَأْنَاهُ خَلْقًا آخَرَ۔([46])

"We created man from the essence of clay. Then He made him a drop and gave him a stable place. Then He made the sperm into a clot of blood. We put flesh on the bones. Then we made him into another creature. "

When the above six stages are completed and the unborn child enters the seventh stage, the soul is breathed into it and after that its abortion is not permissible.

Many effective institutions have been set up in the Islamic world to address modern-day issues that offer Islamic views in the light of research by scholars, scholars, and related sciences from around the world. Therefore, a similar body of the Arab world, “Majma 'al-Fiqh al-Islami Kuwait”, after years of investigation, passed the following resolution in its meeting on December 15-10, 1988:

The purpose of marriage in Islamic law is to protect the human race and to preserve the human race. It is not right to ignore this goal, therefore:

1. There is no legislation that binds a couple together so that they cannot have more children.

2. To make a man or a woman completely infertile so that they cannot have children is not valid unless it is required according to the standards prescribed by Islamic law.

3. It is correct to temporarily stop the birth of a child in such a way that the interval of pregnancy is prolonged or the birth of the child is stopped temporarily provided there is a valid reason for it and both the spouses agree to it and the reason for it. There should be no harm to either party and the means adopted for it should be lawful and there should be no harm to the child in the womb due to it.