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Is It Required of Me to Have Children When I Marry?

25 March, 2019
Q As-salamu `alaykum. I would like to get married but do not want to have kids at all. If I can find a husband to agree to this, is it okay to not ever have children?

Answer

Wa `alaykum As-Salamu wa Rahmatullahi wa Barakatuh

In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful. 

All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.


In this fatwa:

1- We urge you to seek psychological counseling to determine why you do not want to have children.

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2- Any condition that contradicts, compromises or nullifies the main goals and purposes of the marriage contract itself is rejected.

 3- Since one of the purposes of marriage is reproduction, then such a condition cannot be made. 


In his response to the question, Dr. Muzammil Siddiqi, Former president of the Islamic Society of North America, states the following:

The preservation of the human race is unquestionably one of the primary objectives of marriage, along with giving the man and woman a halal outlet for their natural sexual urges.

Accordingly, Islam encourages having many children and blesses both male and female offspring.

Secondly, we urge you to seek psychological counseling to determine why you do not want to have children. Is it because you don’t want to give up a career or is there some deeper problem that needs to be addressed?

Even if you find a man who says he is willing to not have children (perhaps an older man who has children from a previous marriage), it may be that after some years he (or you) will have a change of mind.

This could cause serious problems for your marriage later, as refusing to have children is ground for divorce. Note also that any condition that contradicts, compromises or nullifies the main goals and purposes of the marriage contract itself is rejected. Since one of the purposes of marriage is reproduction, then such a condition cannot be made.

It is good to have children. The Prophet (peace and blessings be upon him) used to encourage Muslims to marry women who can bear more children.

Permanent sterilization without any medical reason is not allowed. You should try to convince yourself to have children, unless you have some medical or psychological problems or some handicap or some other genuine reason.

Try to get some treatment, but do not make this decision simply because you do not want to have children.

 Almighty Allah knows best.

Editor’s note: This fatwa is from Ask the Scholar’s archive and was originally published at an earlier date.