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A poster from Nigeria focusing on avoiding financial burdens by adopting family planning measures.
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By
IOL Staff
UNITED
NATIONS, December 3 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The United
Nations on Tuesday urged developing countries to invest in family
planning to cut fertility rates and open a “demographic window” for
economic growth.
“There
is solid evidence, based on two generations of experience and research,
that there is a ‘population effect’ on economic growth,” the U.N.
Population Fund (UNFPA) said in a new report.
UNFPA
provides almost six billion dollars a year to reproductive health
programs, which include care for pregnant women and newborn babies and
prevention of sexually transmitted diseases and HIV/AIDS as well as
family planning.
The
report, “People, Poverty and Possibilities”, argued that addressing
population concerns was crucial to meeting the U.N.’s Millennium
Summit goals, which include halving global poverty and arresting the
spread of HIV/AIDS by 2015.
It
encouraged governments in poor countries to follow the example of the
Asian “tiger” nations, which invested in health and education early
in the development process.
“Given
a real choice, poor people in developing countries have smaller families
than their parents did,” the report said.
“This
downturn in fertility at the ‘micro’ level translates within a
generation into potential economic growth at the ‘macro’ level, in
the form of a large group of working-age people supporting relatively
fewer older and younger dependents.”
A
study by the National Research Council in the United States in 1986
concluded that, despite its important effect on households, population
growth had no impact on overall economic growth.
But
the UNFPA report cited new research to show that the effect of declining
fertility in Brazil had been equal to an annual increase of 0.7 percent
in per capita gross domestic product.
While
the average fertility rate for developing countries has dropped from six
children per woman to about 2.90 since 1960, it remains at 5.20 in the
least developed regions.
Projections
by the U.N. Population Division - which have proved remarkably accurate
in the past - show the world’s population rising from just over six
billion today to 9.3 billion by mid-century, almost entirely due to
demographic growth in the poorest countries.
Muslim
scholars however, have a different stance on the issue of family
planning.
Responding
to a question on whether population control is allowed by Islam, Sheikh Ahmad Kutty,
a senior lecturer and an Islamic scholar at the Islamic Institute of
Toronto, Ontario, Canada said:
“As
far as population control in a collective level imposed by the
government is concerned, there is no room for its permissibility in
Islam. The argument used by the so-called expert cannot stand rational
scrutiny.
“Everyone
with common sense knows that the problem of poverty in the world is not
simply attributed to lack of resources or over population, rather it is
because of few capitalists monopolizing those recourses.
“Allah
has provided enough resources to sustain the full population. However,
human beings commit injustice when the stronger of them devour the weak.
“Allah
has also granted us scientific knowledge to invent creative ways of
allocating the resources in order to face the challenges of poverty.
“If
only we are to apply the principle of Zakah properly as ordained by
Islam, this alone will eliminate poverty from the society. This was
proven effectively in the time of the pious Muslim caliph ‘Umar Ibn
`Abdul-`Aziz, may Allah be pleased with him.
“Coming
to the issue of the individual resorting to family planning because of
some individual considerations such as sufferings between births, health
considerations or education and proper nurturing of children, it has
been considered permissible to do so according to the fatwas of
contemporary recognized scholars.”
Also
speaking on the topic of family planning, Muslim scholar Mohammad Al
Hanuti said that “if contraception is done because a husband and a
wife doesn’t want children for a certain period of time for a reason,
that is possible. But if any parents are worried about the subsistence
of the child, which is guaranteed by God for the son and the parents,
then it becomes Haram. I would say, birth control, if it is done for any
other reason than subsistence, it could be lawful. But it is not the
good approach.”
Prominent
Muslim Scholar Dr. Yusuf Al Qaradawi said in his book, Al-Halal wal
Haram fil Islam (The Lawful and the Prohibited in Islam):
“The
preservation of the human species is unquestionably the primary
objective of marriage, and such preservation of the species requires
continued reproduction. Accordingly, Islam encourages having many
children and has blessed both male and female progeny. However, it
allows the Muslim to plan his family due to valid reasons and recognized
necessities.”
However,
Al Qaradawi stated that there were valid reasons for contraception which
are:
-
The
fear that the pregnancy or delivery might endanger the life or
health of the mother; the criterion of determining this possibility
is experience or the opinion of a reliable physician.
-
The
fear that the burden of children may hamper the family’s
circumstances so much that one might accept or do something Haram to
satisfy their needs.
-
The
fear that the new pregnancy or a new baby might harm a suckling
child.
Al
Qaradawi said that from the Islamic point of view the ideal spacing
between two children is thirty months, or, if one wants to nurse the
baby for two full years, then thirty-three months.
