veiled4allah: birth control in Islamic law

Family Planning And Islam: A Review provides a good overview of the status of birth control in Islamic law. The article also briefly discusses abortion; I looked at that issue here.

The general rule is that it is permitted to use temporary forms of birth control even if the reason for not wanting children is selfish; however their use is discouraged. The scholars are agreed that a person must have the permission of their spouse to use birth control, because the spouse has a right to have children and has to agree to give up that right. Some scholars also mention that the use of birth control methods may reduce the pleasure that one or both partners enjoy from the marital act, and each spouse also has a right to enjoy the full pleasure of marital relations and has to agree to give up that right.

The most common method of birth control historically is the withdrawal method, called 'azl in Arabic. Since this is a method used by men, the discussions of the consent issue tend to focus on the wife's right to children and to sexual enjoyment and the husband's need to ask her permission, rather than the other way around.

Permanent methods such as sterilization, hysterectomy and vasectomy, etc. are forbidden except if they are medically necessary to preserve health and prevent harm.

A number of conservative scholars today want to strictly limit the permissibility of birth control; however, they have some trouble explaining away the clear permission for it in the texts. Scholars who are both very conservative and at the same time honest to what the Islamic texts say, such as the late Saudi scholar Shaykh Muhammad al-Uthaimin (as quoted by his student Shaykh Muhammad al-Munajjid), find a compromise by placing strict limits on the use of contraceptive methods other than 'azl.

The problem I see with Shaykh Uthaimin's ruling is that one of the basic principles of Islamic jurisprudence is that all things are considered to be permissible unless there is a proof-text showing that they are forbidden. Thus the fact that only 'azl is mentioned does not mean that other methods are forbidden; it simply means that they are not mentioned. A scholar would have to show a clear difference between 'azl and other methods and a reason why this difference meant that the other methods should be forbidden while 'azl is allowed. Shaykh Uthaimin's ruling seems to me to be weak in this regard. Perhaps he set out his reasoning in more detail elsewhere.