Decision of the Council of Senior Scholars on Birth Control: Resolution (42), dated 14/4/1396 AH
All praise belongs to Allah alone, and may prayers and peace be upon the one after whom there is no prophet, Muhammad, and upon his family and Companions. To proceed:
At its eighth session, convened during the first half of the month of Rabiʿ al-Thani 1396 AH, the Council of Senior Scholars examined the issue of preventing pregnancy and of limiting and regulating births. This followed the decision made at the Council’s seventh session, held in the first half of Shaʿban 1395 AH, to place the subject on the agenda of the eighth session. The Council reviewed the research prepared on the matter by the Permanent Committee for Scholarly Research and Fatwa, and—after exchanging views, discussing among the members, and listening to the various opinions—resolved the following:
– Inasmuch as the Islamic sharia encourages the proliferation and increase of offspring and considers children a great favor and immense blessing that Allah has bestowed upon His servants—something attested by numerous scriptural texts from the Book of Allah and the Sunnah of His Messenger ﷺ, cited in the study submitted by the Permanent Committee—
and inasmuch as the call to limit births or prevent pregnancy clashes with the natural disposition upon which Allah created humankind and with the Islamic sharia that the Lord, Exalted be He, has approved for His servants; and inasmuch as those who champion the call to limit births or prevent pregnancy are a group whose aim is to scheme against the Muslims in general and the Arab Muslim community in particular, so that they may be able to colonize the lands and enslave their peoples; and since adopting that view involves a share of the practices of the pre-Islamic period of ignorance, betrays ill-thoughts about Allah, and weakens the Islamic entity, whose strength lies in the abundance and cohesion of its human building blocks—
for all these reasons the Council rules that it is categorically impermissible to limit births, and it is not permissible