888 – Judhama bint Wahb (may Allah be pleased with her) reported: “I was present with the Messenger of Allah ﷺ among some people when he said, ‘I had almost resolved to forbid ghīla, but I considered the Byzantines and the Persians and noticed that they practise ghīla with their children, and it does not harm their children at all. Then they asked him about ʿazl (coitus interruptus), and the Messenger of Allah ﷺ replied, “That is the hidden form of burying a child alive.” ’ Narrated by Muslim (1).

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Glossary of the ḥadith

• “I almost resolved” (hamamtu): The linguists say that hamma bi-l-amr means to be firmly determined to do something yet ultimately not carry it out. Thus the Prophet ﷺ almost prohibited ghīla but did not actually prohibit it.
• ghīla: A man having intercourse with his wife while she is nursing or pregnant.
• al-Rūm: A large nation that, in their time, had reached the height of numbers and power. Ibn Ḥazm said they were named after Romulus, founder of Rome; when the Muslim conquests advanced, they seized most of their territories.
• Fāris (Persia): A great and formidable nation beyond the River, adjacent to Arab lands. Ibn Ḥazm stated they were descended from Sāsān ibn Bahman. The Concise Encyclopedia notes that the Persians were nomadic in the seventh century BCE and later settled the region of Fars after the Assyrians.
• ʿazl: Coitus interruptus—when a man withdraws his organ from his wife’s vagina before ejaculating so that no semen enters, thereby preventing pregnancy.