Muslims can use contraceptives: Deoband

Darool-ul-Deoband, an influential Islamic institute has announced a new fatwa regarding family planning citing that ‘Muslims can use temporary contraceptives for better nurturing their children’. This ‘fatwa’ (A legal opinion on an issue of Islamic ritual) citation is likely to against the previous Islamic belief, which prohibits Muslims for using contraceptive.

The clerics of Darul ifta (the body that issues fatwa) has issued this fatwa as per replying a letter mentioning that there is nothing wrong in using contraceptives for maintaining the gap between the children and their well nourishment.

The madrassa (seminary) has responded the a letter of an unidentified man who had asked the opinion of the madrassa for using condom as he has one-year old child and her wife is not willing for the second child very soon. For asking the permission, he had written a letter to Darool-ul-Deoband madrassa (Islamic institute), which is known as one of the top most Islamic seminary of India.

Granting him permission, the clerics said, “Yes, it is allowable to use temporarily contraceptives” but permanent contraceptive methods like vasectomy and tubectomy are still banned in Islam. According to Islamic belief, “Permanent contraceptives make physiological changes in the body, which is barred in the religion.”

Another renowned Muslim body Jamia-Ulema-e-Hind has supported this fatwa quoting that ‘such a method can be adopted’. “It is permissible in Islam,'' said Abdul Hameed Nomani, the spokesperson of Jamia-Ulema-e-Hind.

Though some Islamic countries like Turkey and Iran motivate their citizen to use contraceptives without any hesitation, so that the growing population in those countries can be checked up to some extent, yet some conventional Islamic countries like Saudi Arab, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan still not in the favour of contraceptives.

In India, only an average of 37% of Muslims uses contraceptives as against an average of 45.7% of the national figure while in Jammu and Kashmir, where the population of Muslims are most in the country have a fine record of 46% just above the national statistics, as Justice Rajinder Sachar submitted his report to the UPA government official last year.