“Do not kill your children for fear of want. We will provide for them and for you. Surely killing them is a great sin.”
(Al Qur’ān – 17:31)
This ayah cuts at the very root of the movement of birth control, which has been going on from ancient times to our present age. It was the fear of want that induced people to kill their children or resort to abortion. In our age another plan has been added to these, i.e. contraception.
This ayah prohibits people from reducing the number of children by artificial means. It also exhorts them to increase the means of production according to the natural methods enjoined by God. It is one of the biggest mistakes of man to check birth rate as a solution to the want and scarcity of provisions. Therefore, it warns him, as if to say: O man, it is not you who make arrangement for food, but God, Who settled you in the land and has been providing for you and will provide for those who will come after you. History tells us that the food resources have always expanded in proportion to the number of inhabitants of a country. Nay, often they have exceeded far more than the needs of the inhabitants. Thus it is a folly on the part of man to interfere with the Divine system and take measures to control population.
In the light of this Divine teaching, it would be prudent to make concerted efforts to increase the means of production that will suffice people.