Family Planning in Islam

Last Thursday, I’ve been invited to present a topic about ‘Family Planning in Islamic Perspective, Rezeki or Risk?’ by National Council For Social Service. Its open for those who are working with family service agencies, be it Family Service Centres, conseling centres and other VWOs. .

This is my second time presenting the talk in English, the first time was when FMSA invited me to be one of the panelists for their Pre-Universiti Seminar. But this is my first in delivering the talk to the non Muslim. Almost 95% of the audiences were non Malay. (More then 60 participants attended this talk).

So can you imagine how nervous I am? Moreover the first speaker is a doctor. When it came to my turn, my leg trembling a bit. My heart dup dap dup dap… But Alhamdulillah, it went well (for my standard hehe) and the audience said its enlightening for them (Alhamdulillah, praise to God) as they do not what to say when their clients keep repeating Allah’s fate and ‘rezeki’ from God as the reason why there’re so productive! In fact, I got a lot of questions during Q & A session. In fact one of the participant requests for the slides.

Actually I’m not the best person to deliver this kind of talk especially in English, but for me to accept this invitation marked the improvement in my personal achievement. I believe, this is the only way that I can improve my public speaking in English. Thanks to Ustaz Haniff for the words of encouragement and for the tips. Thanks to Bro Abu Sufian too for assisting me in translating some of the words : ) I guess my short stint at British Council helped me too.

Ok, let me share here the gist of my talk for the benefit to those who can’t attended the talk.

1. Background of the Low Income Family

– The failure to plan birth control among Muslim community is more prominently among this type of people.

– Its a concern because of their poor family system and poverty.

– Its important to learn the profile of this group in order for us to understand them more, so we know about them better and do not fall into their trap.

– Because the social workers especially the Non Muslims tend to believe them when they mentioned religion as the reason for their ‘mass production ‘. : )

– There’re 3 characteristic that we need to know in regards to their religiosity:

a. No religious background = No Islamic education

b. Poor understanding of Islam. In fact, from my experience, the understanding of Islam among the average middle income Muslim families is much more better.

c. Not practising Muslim. eg. Most of them do not pray.

2. The Concept of ‘Rezeki’

– Rezeki is a gift from Allah.

– It could be money, wealth, marriage, children or anything.

– Its also true that Islam considers children as a source of blessings.

– But the gift does’nt drop from sky or just suddenly appear just like that!

– On the other hand, we need to work hard to achieve something eg. good education and then pray for the rezeki.

– Each gift come with more responsibility to fulfill. eg. As a husband, we need to lead our wife to the right path, give alimony and maintenance to our family without fail, raised the children with religious background and provide them good education.

– We (the social workers) do need to remind them for their roles and responsibilities

– Do they have the capability? (to have more children?)

– The point is we need to plan to have more children.

– But if we blessed with wealth, have good religious background. Then its OK to have more children.

3. Family Planning

– The jurists or Muslim scholars permitted Muslim for birth control with the intend to distance the occurences of family or to delay it for a specific amount of time.

– Not acceptable if the intention was to avoid maternity role because major purpose for marriage is procreation.

– Therefore married couples must not consider marriage simply as an avenue of sexual or just satisfaction.

– But while Islam encourages procreation, Islam equally stresses the important to nurture children to become a leader and asset to community and humanity.

– That’s why it allows the Muslim to plan his family due to these valid reasons because parenting demand adequare care and full attention from parents.

The Muslim jurists had stated conditions and requirements on this matter. There are three things that we need to consider:

1. To avoid endangering or harm the life and health of the mother = This opinion must come from reliable physician.

2. If fear that the children health and upbringing may suffer. eg. The parent decided that they can only manage to have only 2 children because of financial factor, or afraid they can’t provided a good education, or afraid they can’t managed and raised them as a good Muslim. Because in today’s life, its important to have savings, insurance etc to safeguard our family.

3. Uncertainty if the new pregnancy might harm an already suckling child. There are hadiths said that the prophet did not encouraged this practise, emphasizing the fact that this pregnany would pollute the milk, thus causing great harm to the suckling children.

4. Contraceptive method in Islam

– The jurists or Muslim scholars had made consensus on permission of contraception as long as its not permanent. (withdrawal method, condom, IUD, oral pill etc)

– Permanent methods include Vasectomy for males and Tubectomy for females.

– The contraception in Islam permitted for married couples only.

– It had been narrated that the common method of contraception among the companion at the time of prophet was withdrawal method (withdrawal of the penis from the vagina just before ejaculation).

– The conditions are same as been mentioned before in regards to family planning.

That’s is all that I can remember for now. Hope this information can be useful to all of us. I.Allah. My apology too if the posting is difficult to understand. But I hope the message that I tried to convey is understood.