Islam’s Encouragement of Having Many Children

The questioner: This is a letter we received from Ghana, from a woman who calls herself Baba Yendi. She says: “May Allah preserve you, O you of virtue, and may Allah reward you with good! But I heard in one of the program’s episodes about the permissibility of using pills that prevent pregnancy. I heard this answer twice. Once, a man of Egyptian nationality, an engineer, asked about it, and they said: It is permissible to use pills to prevent pregnancy. Although I do not know of, nor have I heard, any evidence for the permissibility of this from the Qur’an and the Sunnah, nor from the statements of the majority of scholars. And you know that this is one of the actions of the Christians and the disbelievers; for they are the ones who made them and sent them to the Muslims to reduce the number of Muslim children. The Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) encouraged us to have many children in the hadith of Anas ibn Malik (may Allah be pleased with him) : And he said: Narrated by Ahmad. Please give us a ruling, may Allah benefit you?”
The answer: You have done well, may Allah bless you. There is no doubt that the use of pills by Muslims to prevent children is undoubtedly a great propaganda effort by the Christians. The Christians call for this matter to reduce the number of Muslim children. However, not everything they call for is forbidden. If they call for something that the Shari’ah has permitted, their call does not harm us. If they call for something that the Shari’ah has forbidden, it is obligatory to leave it. And if they call for something that the Shari’ah has permitted, there is no harm.
So, regarding the pills, there is a detailed ruling: If there is a pressing need for them—because the woman is ill and cannot bear pregnancy, or she has something in her womb that pregnancy would harm her with, or would cause her death—then there is no harm in avoiding pregnancy, and there is no harm in taking pills that prevent pregnancy. Likewise, if she has many children, and they have multiplied and come one after another, and it is difficult for her to raise them because of their number, then it is permissible for her to take the pills with her husband’s permission for a short period, such as one or two years during the breastfeeding period, until the matter becomes easier for her and she is able to manage the upbringing. The evidence for this is what is established in the authentic hadiths from the Messenger of Allah (peace and blessings be upon him) that he permitted coitus interruptus. Jabir (may Allah be pleased with him) said: It is agreed upon as authentic. May Allah guide them all. Yes.
The presenter: May Allah bless you and reward you with good.