Childfree (without children by choice) would be heresy. At least this is what some preachers have been saying in a growing number of speeches on the subject of childlessness recently. People who are childless by circumstances seem to have the sympathy of preachers: they are still granted the status of Muslims.

On the other hand, Muslims who choose not to procreate worry preachers and theologians. This decision is said to be un-Islamic. However, Childfree is neither a twenty-first century invention nor a Western practice reserved for non-Muslims.

Let us remember that in Islam the purpose of marriage is not reproduction. Coitus interruptus was the contraceptive method used and accepted at the time. Some see it as the beginnings of family planning, others see it as the prefiguration of an option to procreate or not.

So collective amnesia or selective memory?

Refreshing the memory

Many highly respected figures in the history of Islam and Muslim communities could be described as childfree (without children by choice).

Abu Ahmid Al-Ghazali (1058-1111), a theologian-philosopher, explains in an autobiography [1]his spiritual crisis at the end of which he renounced the world of this world. He adopted Sufism and developed an educational thought. A thought that insists on the responsibility of parents and society in the formation of an individual. This approach is very much in line with the foundations of the work published centuries later on child development.

 Let us mention Rabiyah al Adawiya (717 – 801) who renounced marriage in order to devote herself to his relationship with the Divine. This choice at that time was equivalent to rejecting motherhood.

Lady Fatima Masoumeh (790-816), daughter of one of the twelve imams[2] of the Shiite tradition, died at the age of twenty-eight, unmarried and childless. A pious woman, illustrious in the Shiite tradition, she represents, like other figures such as Fatima-Zahra, the daughter of the Prophet Mohammed, a model for Shiite Muslim women.

Nevertheless, her celibacy and her status as a childless woman have necessitated some contemporary revisions to her biography, the ideal image of the model woman being that of a married woman and mother. This is partly what sociologist Ladan Rahbari defends.[3] According to her, theologians always try to explain Lady Fatima Masoumeh’s celibacy by extraordinary reasons, without ever wanting to attribute this celibacy and the absence of children to a choice.

Thus her piety would have reached such a level that finding a compatible husband for her remained impossible. This argument establishes, on the one hand, according to the researcher, that twenty-eight years old at the time and today is a very advanced age for a single woman. On the other hand, it demonstrates the importance for religious and political authorities to harmonize their interpretations, their vision of Muslim women with historical reality.

A constraint to procreation in the Qur’an?

Does this mean that men and women without children must devote themselves exclusively to the Divine to justify celibacy and a childless life? Certainly not. The life of an ascetic in the Qur’an is neither praised nor condemned, as verse 27 of Sura 57 makes quite clear. No assertion on the obligation of procreation is put forward to prohibit such a practice.

The message of the Qur’an does not seem to command childbirth, which would be in total contradiction with the verse explaining that the Creator gives (children) to whom He wills.

The arguments for an obligation to procreate can be found in the hadiths supposedly attributed to the Prophet that the arguments for an obligation to procreate are to be found. These arguments condemn childfree people or enjoin men and women without children by circumstance to use all means to conceive.

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Original Text Musulmans childfree : amnésie collective ou mémoire sélective ?

Translation by Discussions Essentielles and Deep L

About the author

I am a French Muslim author with a passion for Islam. I studied Islam in a traditional and academic setting.  My interest in the subjects of childlessness began over 10 years ago.

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© Photo credit unsplash – Krakenimages

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[1] Deliverance from error, Al-Ghazali

[2] In the Shia branch of Muslims, imams are considered the rightful successors of the Prophet Muhammad

[3] Politics of Non-Motherhood in Shi’a Islam: Imagery and Narratives around Fatemeh-Masoumeh of Qom in Turkish Journal of Shiite studies, June 2020