Requesting supplication for offspring and explaining the ruling on suicide
Machine translationRead the Arabic original
Question:
This questioner, Your Excellency the Shaykh, or rather he is closer to making a supplication and a request, says: I am forty-seven years old, married, and I have not been blessed with children. I have borne a great deal of debt, and people are demanding their rights. I ask you to supplicate to Allah, Glorified and Exalted is He, that He bless me with righteous offspring. And I am thinking about suicide.
Answer:
We ask Allah for well-being. Offspring is desired, and you have made the efforts to obtain offspring but it did not happen, so you must entrust the matter to Allah and you do not know what the good in it is; perhaps the good for you is in not having offspring. Allah knows best. This is from one aspect. From the other aspect, do not despair, for perhaps offspring will be written for you at the end of your life. This is Ibrahim (peace be upon him); he reached the age of eighty and no offspring came to him, but he was given the glad tidings of a child after eighty, or at the age of eighty, peace and blessings be upon him.[Al-Hijr 15:54-56] So do not despair, my brother. As for suicide, it is a great crime and a cause for entering the Fire. The Messenger (peace and blessings be upon him) said: Sahih al-Bukhari 5778 And in the hadith, a man was distressed by illness and killed himself, and Allah, Mighty and Majestic, said: It is not permissible for a person to kill himself, no matter what the circumstances or the severity; he must be patient and endure and not kill himself. Yes.
This questioner, Your Excellency the Shaykh, or rather he is closer to making a supplication and a request, says: I am forty-seven years old, married, and I have not been blessed with children. I have borne a great deal of debt, and people are demanding their rights. I ask you to supplicate to Allah, Glorified and Exalted is He, that He bless me with righteous offspring. And I am thinking about suicide.
Answer:
We ask Allah for well-being. Offspring is desired, and you have made the efforts to obtain offspring but it did not happen, so you must entrust the matter to Allah and you do not know what the good in it is; perhaps the good for you is in not having offspring. Allah knows best. This is from one aspect. From the other aspect, do not despair, for perhaps offspring will be written for you at the end of your life. This is Ibrahim (peace be upon him); he reached the age of eighty and no offspring came to him, but he was given the glad tidings of a child after eighty, or at the age of eighty, peace and blessings be upon him.
(54) He said, "Have you given me good tidings although old age has come upon me? Then of what [wonder] do you inform?" (55) They said, "We have given you good tidings in truth, so do not be of the despairing." (56) He said, "And who despairs of the mercy of his Lord except for those astray?"
قَالَ أَبَشَّرْتُمُونِي عَلَىٰ أَن مَّسَّنِيَ الْكِبَرُ فَبِمَ تُبَشِّرُونَ قَالُوا بَشَّرْنَاكَ بِالْحَقِّ فَلَا تَكُن مِّنَ الْقَانِطِينَ قَالَ وَمَن يَقْنَطُ مِن رَّحْمَةِ رَبِّهِ إِلَّا الضَّالُّونَand whoever kills himself with an iron weapon, will be carrying that weapon in his hand and stabbing his `Abdomen with it in the (Hell) Fire
من قتل نفسه بحديدة فحديدته في يده يجأ بها نفسه في نار جهنمMy servant hastened to kill himself, so I have made the Fire obligatory for him
بادرني عبدي بنفسه اوجبت له النار
Source
قناة «العلامة الدكتور صالح الفوزان»، محاضرات في العقيدة والدعوة-035-الفتوى وأحكامها|صالح الفوزان|كبار العلماء — youtube.com (1:06:50)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.