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date: 15 February 2025

Islamic Bioethics: Birth Controllocked

Islamic Bioethics: Birth Controllocked

  • Zaynab El BernoussiZaynab El BernoussiDepartment of Social Science, NYU Abu Dhabi
  • , and Baudouin DupretBaudouin DupretCentre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Les Afriques dans le Monde

Summary

The practice of birth control encompasses several techniques that can be either preventive or corrective. In the premodern Islamic tradition, the ʿazl or withdrawal was the most common method of birth control that often required the woman’s approval. Given the lack of precise condemnation of contraception in the Qurʾān, recent fatwas have allowed contraception and abortion in cases of malformation of the fetus or—(according to some scholars) in extremely exceptional situations—economic incapacity of the parents to raise the child. In the modern states of the Muslim world, the ambitions for economic development have oftentimes been associated with population control. In modern Muslim societies birth rates are influenced not only by modern attitudes and new interpretations of contraception, but also by global dynamics such as an integrated world economy, migration, and statism. The different stances of premodern and modern jurists in Islam regarding questions of birth control also reveal pluralism in these societies.

Subjects

  • Islamic Studies

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