Grand Cape Mount County – An Islamic scholar in Grand Cape Mount County has clarified that family planning is not harmful and forbidden for Muslim families as claimed by some Muslims.
Sheik Abdallah Musa Sheriff said the use of pills, or injectable as a means of planning one’s family is not a violation of any Islamic law.
According to Sheik Musa, family planning was in existence during the days of the Holy Prophet Muhammed and was done by abstaining from sexual intercourse before or during marriage.
‘’ Even during the time of the Prophet Muhammed Peace and Blessing of God be upon Him people were doing family planning,” he said. “They were not allowed to have sex before they get married and when they get married they will put years between their children.’’
He pointed out that those claiming that the current family planning methods that are used by women is another form of abortion is not true but intends to mislead the public.
Sheik Musa is encouraging other Muslim teachers, scholars and Imams to give the right information to the public, which he said, will enable them make good decision in their family life.
He emphasized that though the practice is encouraged in Islam for proper planning and spacing of children, children and adult women should not misuse the opportunity by sleeping with multiple sex partners.
He warned that although Muslims believed that children are blessing from God, but they should at the same time understand it comes with responsibility – providing their basic needs.
The use of family planning pills and injection among Muslim families has become a problem in some homes in Grand Cape Mount County.
But according to Darul Fiqh of the Gate Way to Islamic Science, with the exception of male and female sterilization, all other methods of family planning are permissible in Islam.
Meanwhile, Sheik Musa stressed that it is important for Muslims to plan their family very well in order to avoid having more children that they cannot afford to care for thereby leaving them to become illiterate, school dropout, and criminals in the society.
‘’ You can’t just born plenty children like that and bring more criminal, school dropout, and even illiterate people in the country because you can’t care for them,’’ he said.
Some users told Local Voices they have been encouraged to use family planning tablets and injection but said they are afraid that it might lead to misunderstanding in the family and sometimes lead to divorce.
Zainabu Kiadii, a wife of an Islamic teacher and mother of six, is one of the five ladies who said it was a difficult decision to accept the use of family planning pills.
‘”From the beginning it was very hard for me to start taking the tablet because my husband never like the idea,” Zainabu explains. “He started laying my complaints to my parents that I have joined the other girls that (are) spoiling pregnancy by taking tablet.”
She was constrained to suspend the pills for sometimes, but after a while she got pregnant.
“…By that time I was already having five children, but later on my husband sister daughter (niece) who’s working to (at) the clinic call him and explain to him and he was satisfy small,’’ she said. She is now continuing the family planning, but this time with her husband’s permission.
Report By: Ibrahim Sesay
