What is the ruling on family planning?
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Question : The questioner says: Honorable Shaykh, what is the ruling on what is called family planning or coitus interruptus? Is this matter prescribed? What is the prescribed method? Did it exist in the time of the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) and the Rightly Guided Companions? May Allah reward you with good.
Answer : The correct path is not to limit the number of children, because the more children one has, the better it is. Limiting the number of children is considered foolishness on the part of a person, because these children he has might all die in a single accident, leaving him a widower, or one of them might die and leave him disabled. We say that a person should not limit the number of children, because children are in the hand of Allah (Mighty and Majestic). How many people have limited their children to, for example, four or five, and then they die and none remain? If the woman had continued to give birth, then if these died, she would have other children. Limiting the number of children is also contrary to what Allah and His Messenger commanded, for Allah says:[An-Nisa 4:1] and the Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) commanded that one should marry a woman who is loving and fertile, in order to outnumber the nations thereby.
Answer : The correct path is not to limit the number of children, because the more children one has, the better it is. Limiting the number of children is considered foolishness on the part of a person, because these children he has might all die in a single accident, leaving him a widower, or one of them might die and leave him disabled. We say that a person should not limit the number of children, because children are in the hand of Allah (Mighty and Majestic). How many people have limited their children to, for example, four or five, and then they die and none remain? If the woman had continued to give birth, then if these died, she would have other children. Limiting the number of children is also contrary to what Allah and His Messenger commanded, for Allah says:
O mankind, fear your Lord, who created you from one soul and created from it its mate and dispersed from both of them many men and women
يَا أَيُّهَا النَّاسُ اتَّقُوا رَبَّكُمُ الَّذِي خَلَقَكُم مِّن نَّفْسٍ وَاحِدَةٍ وَخَلَقَ مِنْهَا زَوْجَهَا وَبَثَّ مِنْهُمَا رِجَالًا كَثِيرًا وَنِسَاءً
Source
قناة «فضيلة الشيخ محمد بن صالح العثيمين»، لقاء[18 من 30] ما حكم تحديد النسل؟!! الشيخ ابن عثيمين - مشروع كبار العلماء — youtube.com
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.