a trustworthy Muslim physician.

As for the calls to limit births or to prevent pregnancy as a general policy, they are not permissible in the shariʿa for the reasons mentioned above. Even more blameworthy is to compel whole nations to adopt such measures and impose them upon them, at a time when vast sums are being squandered on the global arms race for domination and destruction instead of being invested in economic development, reconstruction, and the peoples’ essential needs.

• Resolution of the Islamic Fiqh Council concerning the conversion of a male into a female and vice versa:

Praise be to Allah, and may blessings and peace be upon the Prophet after whom there is no other, our master Muhammad ﷺ. To proceed:

The Islamic Fiqh Council of the Muslim World League, in its eleventh session convened in Mecca from Sunday 13 Rajab 1409 AH (19 February 1989) to Sunday 20 Rajab 1409 AH (26 February 1989), examined the issue of converting a male into a female and the reverse. After study and discussion, the Council resolved the following:

First: A male whose male organs are fully developed, and a female whose female organs are fully developed, may not lawfully be converted into the opposite sex. Any attempt to do so is a punishable crime, for it constitutes altering Allah’s creation. Allah, exalted be He, has forbidden such alteration, quoting Satan as saying: “and I shall command them, and they will surely alter Allah’s creation” (al-Nisaʾ 4:119).

It is related in Sahih Muslim that Ibn Masʿud said: “Allah has cursed the women who tattoo and those who have themselves tattooed, those who pluck eyebrows and those who have their eyebrows plucked, and those who file their teeth for beauty, thereby altering Allah’s creation.” Ibn Masʿud then said: “Should I not curse one whom the Messenger of Allah ﷺ cursed, when it is also in the Book of Allah?—meaning His statement: ‘So take what the Messenger gives you…’”