Contraception in Islamic sources and history

Abstract

The Koran's silence on contraception·is compensated by Profet Muhammad's words which largely do not prohibit the coitus interruptus. The Islamic tradition took over this tolerance through the most esteemed al-Ghazali who worked out the criteria to be respected in order to legitimize the practice of the coitus interruptus and later of the modern contraception methods. In Ghazali's opinion the coitus intenuptus is a "makruh" action, i.e. an act which is blamable for the categories of the Islamic Law but at the same time tolerated. Nowadays most of the Islamic jurists accept the contraception methods though with different nuances. The demographic policy of the Arab-lsamic countries appears to be more diffefentiated, oscillating from the prohibition to a more or less large acceptance of the various contraception methods.