What is the ruling on family planning?

The questioner : A woman wishes to have children, but her husband also refuses to have many offspring and is content with a few. Is she allowed to command him or do anything to make him agree to having children, for example?

The Shaykh : For example, what can she do? First, agreeing to prevent this husband is not permissible according to the Shari'ah. But what can this wife do? We must know the reasons for the matter.

The questioner : He is old in age.

The Shaykh : Yes?

The questioner : He is old in age, but he is capable of having children; he simply does not want to.

The Shaykh : This is a repetition of your question. May Allah reward you. I hope for an answer to my direct question: What can this woman do regarding this husband who wants to limit or regulate his offspring? For example, does she want to refuse him? We say here: No, it is not permissible, because this is his right. So what do you want to do in this question? I do not think you have an answer.

The questioner : ... Perhaps they force her to use coitus interruptus or other means of prevention.

The Shaykh : If she refuses something he imposes on her that is not permissible according to the Shari'ah, then her refusal is valid. But this is not an active action on her part; it is a passive action. I fear that there is something behind the question that contradicts the Shari'ah, as I gave an example earlier: that she refuses to consent to what he wants. In any case, limiting and regulating offspring is not from Islam. Of course, there are specific rulings in certain circumstances concerning the wife, not the husband. If she is ill, for example, or has anemia, and there is a fear of her death due to frequent childbirth, then it can be said that she may take some preventive measures that do not require her to expose her 'awrah (part of the body that must be covered). Within certain limits, this is possible. However, adopting a system as is common in this time is not permissible.

The questioner : O Shaykh, like pregnancy pills where she calculates that she drank them but she did not drink them. Is this situation considered a violation of his right?

The Shaykh : If it is within the limits we mentioned, meaning, for example, she is not ill.

The questioner : ... Regarding the previous question: she wants to perform Hajj and she has the right to perform Hajj. So if this leads to her divorce, meaning if her going with a mahram (a relative one may not marry) other than her husband leads to this divorce, does she still perform Hajj?

The Shaykh : Meaning, if she performs Hajj with the mahram without the husband's permission, she is exposed to the husband divorcing her? Yes, what is the obstacle?

The questioner : May Allah reward you with good.

The Shaykh : But is there a woman who would accept this divorce? Here is the struggle (jihad), here is the struggle. We receive questions from some women whose husbands are drunkards who do not come home until the middle of the night, do not pray, and do not fast. When we tell her that it is not permissible for her to stay with him for an hour of night or day, she says, "What do I do about the children?" All these are calamities. Where is the woman who accepts that her husband will divorce her? And I do not say, as some say, that she accepts to divorce him; she divorces the husband, because divorce is in the man's hand, as is well known. This is very rare. If it is found, then it is the obligatory thing, meaning obedience to the created being after obedience to the Creator.