By: Allama Mohammed Shihabuddin Nadvi
Rendered into English: Aneesur Rahman Nadvi
The importance of having many children in Islam
In some hadiths, getting married and acquiring as many children as possible have been emphasized. One of the reasons given for this is that on the Day of Resurrection, the Muslim Ummah should be more numerous than other nations.
تَنَاکَحُوْا تَکَثَّرُوْا، فَإِنِّيْ أُبَاھِيْ بِکُمُ الأُمَمَ يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ:
“The Prophet (PBUH) said: Marry one another, so that you grow in numbers. On this basis, I will be proud of you over other nations on the Day of Resurrection.”(61)
کَانَ رَسُوْلُ اللّہِ صَلّى اللّہُ عَلَيْهِ وَسَلَّمَ يَأمُرُ بِالْبَاءَةِ وَيَنْھى عَنِ التَّبَتُّلِ نَھْيًا شَدِيْدًا، وَيَقُوْلُ تَزَوَّجُوْا الْوَدُوْدَ الْوَلُوْدَ، فَإِنِّيْ مُکَاثِرٌ الأنْبِيَاءِ بِکُمْ يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَة.
The Prophet (PBUH) used to enjoin marriage and strictly forbid celibacy, saying, “Marry women who love you more and who gives birth to more children.(62) Because on the Day of Resurrection, I will be proud of you over other prophets.”(63)
اِنْکِحُوا أُمَّھَاتَ الأَوْلاَدِ، فَإِنِّى أُبَاھِيْ بِھِمْ يَوْمَ الْقِيَامَةِ:
“The Messenger of Allah (PBUH) said: Marry women of children (those who give birth to more children), so that I may feel proud through them on the Day of Resurrection.”(64)
تَزَوَّجُوْا فَإِنِّيْ مُکَاثِرٌ بِکُمُ الأُمَمَ، وَلا تَکُوْنُوْا کَرَھْبَانِيَّةِ النَّصَاري:
“O Muslims! You get married (so that more children can be born). I will feel proud through you over other nations and do not adopt monasticism like Christians.”(65)
Having many children is so important in Islam that a woman who gives birth to more children even if she is not a beautiful one has been considered better than a beautiful but infertile woman. It is narrated in the hadiths that a man came to the Prophet (PBUH) and said, “I have found a beautiful woman of good family background, but she is infertile. So should I marry her? The Prophet (PBUH) replied: No. Then he came again and the prophet (PBUH) forbade him again. Then he came third time and the prophet said:
تَزَوَّجُوْا الْوَدُوْدَ الْوَلُوْدَ، فَإِنِّيْ مُکَاثِرٌ بِکُمُ الأُمَمَ:
The Prophet (PBUH) said, “Marry women who love you more and who gives birth to more children, because I will be proud of you over other prophets.”(66)
لاَتَزَوَّجُوْا عَجُوْزًا وَلاَعَاقِرًا، فَإِنِّيْ مُکَاثِرٌ بِکُمُ الأُمَمَ۔
“Do not marry an old or an infertile woman, because I will fell proud through you over other nations.” (67)
A study of these hadiths amply shows the nature of Islamic law with regard to marital and family life. These hadiths also reveal the fact that modern family planning or birth control is a flawed thing in the eyes of Islam, because the fixed sustenance of every person reaches to him from Allah, and Almighty Allah is the Lord of all creatures. The keys of sustenance are not in the hands of man but are in the hands of the Creator of the earth and heavens. Therefore, one should not give up the duty of his life no matter how upset he is. The following sayings of Almighty Allah serve as guiding principles in this regard:
وَمَا مِنْ دَابَّةٍ فِى الْاَرْضِ اِلَّا عَلى اللّہِ رِزْقُھَا، وَيَعْلَمُ مُسْتَقَرَّھَا وَمُسْتَوْدَعَھَا۔
“And to Allah belongs the sustenance of all living creatures on earth. And he is well aware of its temporary and permanent whereabouts.” (Qur’an: 11: 6)
وَکَأيِّنْ مِّنْ دَابَّةٍ لَاتَحْمِلُ رِزْقَھَا۔ اَللّہُ يَرْزُقُھَا وَاِيَّاکُمْ۔
“And there are many living beings who do not carry their sustenance. Allah provides sustenance to them and you.” (Quran: 29: 60)
وَمَنْ يَّتَّقِ اللّہَ يَجْعَلْ لَّهُ مَخْرَجاً، وَيَرْزُقُهُ مِنْ حَيْثُ لاَيَحْتَسِبْ۔
“Whoever fears Allah, He will make a way out for him, and provides him the sustenance in a way that is beyond his comprehension.” (Qur’an: 65: 2-3)
اَللّہُ يَبْسُطُ الرِّزْقَ لِمَنْ يَّشَاءُ وَيَقْدِرُ۔
“It is Allah Who broadens or straitens the sustenance for whom He wills.” (Qur’an: 13:26)
وَفِى السَّمَاءِ رِزْقُکُمْ وَمَا تُوْعَدُوْنَ۔
“In the heavens is your sustenance, and so is that which you are promised.” (Qur’an: 51:22)
Expansiveness in livelihood is in married life
From the above details, it is very clear that marriage is not a trivial matter in the eyes of Islam. Rather, this act is also a cause of worship and reward, because it brings innumerable religious and worldly benefits. Some people avoid getting married and prefer to live an unmarried life because of the poverty and neediness. Hence, Islam has encouraged that abstaining from marriage due to one’s poverty is not a right solution to this problem. Rather, the correct solution is to seek livelihood through marriage. That is, when a man gets married and struggles financially, Almighty Allah expands the livelihood of such a person. According to a hadith of Ibn ‘Abbas (RA), it has been emphasized to seek livelihood through marriage.
اِلْتَمِسُوْا الرِّزْقَ بِالنِّکَاحِ۔
“Seek the livelihood through marriage.” (68)
It means that livelihood is obtained through marriage. Therefore, one should not try to renounce married life out of fear of neediness or raising a family.
مَنْ تَرَکَ التَّزَوُّجَ مَخَافَةً الْعَيْلَةِ فَلَيْسَ مِنَّا۔
“He who does not marry out of fear of the neediness is not our man.” (69)
Marriage and conjugal life are so important in Islam that Ibn Mas’ud (RA) said that he did not like to spend a single day of his life unmarried and die unmarried.
لَوْ عَلِمْتُ أَنَّهُ لَمْ يَبْقَ مِنْ أَجَلِيْ إِلاّ عَشَرُ لَيَالٍ،لأَحْبَبْتُ أَنْ لاَ يُفَارِقَنِيْ فِيْھِنَّ إِمْرَأَةٌ۔
“If I found out that there are only ten days left in my life, I would like no woman to be separated from me in those ten days. (My death would not have come without wife).”(70)
According to another narration, if I find out that I will die on the last day out of these ten days, I will definitely get married for the fear of sedition.(71)
Incorrect methods of marriage
The real purpose of marriage is that through this bond both the man and the woman have to be each other’s forever. It’s not just a matter of enjoying each other to satisfy their lust, or that the man harms the woman by a temporary contract or forces her to become a prostitute. The security of the society lies only in following the restrictions of marital rules. Therefore, apart from the permanent marriage contract, all the other possible methods will corrupt the society. Before Islam, some methods of marriage were prevalent among the Arabs, which are mentioned in the books of hadith by Hazrat Ayesha Siddiqah (RA). They are as follow:
1 – A person would send a proposal of marriage to someone’s daughter and then pay her dowry and marry her as it is practiced today (Islamic method).
2 – A man used to send his wife (when she is in the state of menopause and in a state of purity) to a known (distinguished) person to have intercourse with him. With the idea of getting a noble boy through him, and in the meantime, he would stay away from his wife until her pregnancy was revealed. Then he would have intercourse with his wife if he wanted.
3 – Less than ten men would gather around a certain woman and used to have intercourse with her (alternatively). When this woman bore a child, she would call all the men. On such an occasion, no one would have dared to stop from attending. When all the men gathered around her, she would have attributed her child to the person she liked and he would be considered the father of that child unarguably, and no one would have dared to challenge it.
4 – Many men used to come to a specific woman to full fill their sexual desires and she would not stop anyone from coming. These were prostitutes who used to put flags on their doors. When such a women bore a child, all the men would be gathered and then a physiognomist would be called, who would find out the father of this child through facial characteristics and resemblances, then he would be recognized as the father of that child.
But Islamic law invalidated all other methods except the current one.(72) Hafiz Ibn Hajar and Allama Badruddin Aini, have written, quoting some scholars, that in addition to these methods, three other methods were prevalent among the Arabs, which were forbidden by Islam.
5 – Nikah Khudan (secret friendship): It is mentioned in this verse of the Qur’an. وَلاَ مُتَّخِذَاتِ اَخْدَان: “And those women should not make secret friends.”
6 – Mut’ah Marriage: Temporarily marrying with the condition of some time.
7 – Marriage of Substitute [Nikah badal]: That is, exchanging each other’s wives.(73)
Nowadays it is customary in Western countries to exchange each other’s wives as a fashion, because the present man is tired of sameness and wants to bring some “novelty” in his life. He always looks for new methods. Therefore, two friends engage in such sexual experiments with the consent of their wives, which is called “swinging” in modern terms. In this way, the ancient ignorance is reviving today and showing its charisma.
Current obscenity and social crimes
All the methods except the permanent marriage have been considered haram and unlawful by Islam. The purpose of preventing all these wrong ways of intercourse between a man and a woman in the eyes of Islam is to prevent obscenity and immorality and to establish and protect the correct lineage. Obviously, except for the permanent bond between a man and a woman, the lineage becomes suspicious in all other methods, and it won’t be possible to justify the lineage of the offspring born through these methods to any one person rationally. Even if a person is forced to accept it due to certain social customs, this cannot hold true in terms of fact and actuality. The result will be that the next generation of any such “illegitimate” child will be considered inferior and despised in society for being suspicious and tainted. Hence, all the children who belong to the race of such a person will always suffer from humiliation and inferiority complex. Obviously, this thing would be very harmful and destructive from a social and cultural point of view. Hence, Islam has declared all these methods as illegitimate and haram at once, so that human society can move towards development and construction instead of inclining towards destructive tendencies.
It should be noted that due to the permissiveness of sexual immorality in Western countries, the number of illegitimate or out-of-wedlock children has increased to such an extent that it has created many complex and unsolvable social and cultural problems there. And this same class seems to be more involved in social crimes today. As these children lack proper education and training, they develop rebellious and criminal tendencies from the society which lead them to sabotage and destruction. And because of this, the intellectuals and scholars there are wondering how to solve these most difficult social problems. It seems there is only one solution to this problem, and it is closing all the doors leading to obscenity and immorality.
Practicality of Islam
The bottom line is that when a boy or a girl grows up and they can afford to get marry, they must get married in order to lead a chaste life, because living an unmarried life or celibacy causes many social evils. Similarly, there is a strong emphasis in Islam on the marriage of widows and divorced women. On the contrary, the Prophet (PBUH) himself has set an example for the ummah by having multiple marriages with the idea of taking care of widows and divorced women.(74) For those who get married, Allah has promised that He will provide for them livelihood in abundance. That is, the livelihood of such people will be the responsibility of Allah. One of the foremost important objectives of marriage is to have children. Having children has many benefits. For example:
1 – Maintaining the continuity of the human race.
2 – Taking care of parents in old age.
3 – To inherit his/her wealth and property.
4 – His/her name and deeds may live on.
5 – They can be saved in the life hereafter because of the prayers of their children and their good deeds.
In addition, parents are attached to their children and the joy that comes from seeing them is beyond description. The most cherished thing for a person in the world is his children; nothing else in the world can replace it. That is why the Prophet (PBUH) forbade marrying women who are infertile, even if they are of good lineage and position.
For all these reasons, it is evident that the purpose of marriage and family life is not merely fulfilling sexual pleasure, but the attainment of true religious and worldly benefits. However, the sexual aspect is also present in it as a factor. It shows great wisdom and expediency of the Creator of this universe. The reason behind this is that man should not get tired of the struggle of life, but he should continue to perform his duties happily. Therefore, the Creator of the world has mixed a little sugar in this “bitter medicine”.
The achievement of Islam in this regard is that it has acted realistically in comparison to other religions, and it called the sexual intercourse itself rather than this whole act as worship. Not a meager of such concept exits in other religions. On the contrary, in many religions, marital life has been condemned and the life of abstraction and monasticism has been preferred. And living in the jungles and deserts and living a monastic life is considered the ascension of spirituality. But since such ideas were unnatural and did not fit in with human nature, they didn’t become popular.
And even in the religions where conjugal life is preferred over such concepts of celibacy and monasticism, the true nature of the relationship between a man and a woman is not as clear, as everything has clearly been mentioned in Islam. This comparative study amply shows the complementary aspect of Islam among the world religions and its true achievement comes to the fore.
Marriage of jokes and divorce of jokes
This importance and efficacy of married life makes clear the nature of Islamic law that how it acts realistically, keeping in mind human nature step by step, and restrains all tendencies which are contrary to human nature and a virtuous civilization.
That is why Islamic shariah has enforced the marriages and divorces that have taken place in jokes. That is, if a sane and mature person marries or divorces as a joke, it will be legally applicable and his excuse that I was joking will not be acceptable, as has been clearly mentioned in the hadiths.
ثلاث جدھن جد وھزلھن جد :النکاح والطلاق والرجعة:
“There are three things in which seriousness is considered seriousness and humor is also considered seriousness. And these are marriage, divorce, and regression, rajah (i.e. remarrying a woman after a revocable divorce).”
Obviously, if ridicule is allowed in such social matters, then the rules of Shari’ah will become a spectacle and the commands of Almighty Allah will be suspended. In this regard, some scholars have argued from the following Qur’anic verse:
وَلاَتَتَّخِذُوا آيَاتِ اللّہِ ھُزُواً:
And do not make a mockery of Allah’s commands. (Qur’an: 2:231)
References:
61 – Musanaf Abdul Razzaq, 6/173.
62 – That is, marry in a family whose women are more fertile and more loving.
63 – Sunan Saeed Bin Mansour, 1/122; Al Sunan al-Kubra, Baihaqi, V. 7, P. 81-82; Sahih Ibn Hibban, V. 7, P. 134; Musnad Ahmed, V. 3, P. 158.
64 – Al Fathur Rabbani, 16/145, Darul Hadith, Cairo, Egypt.
65 – Al Sunan al-Kubra, from Kanzul Ummal, 16/725.
66 – Sunan Abu Dawood, 2/542; Sunan al-Nasaie, 2/680; Mustadrak Hakim 2/162.
67 – Tabrani & Mustadrak Hakim, Kanzul Ummal, 16/296.
68 – Musnad Firdous, Kanzul Ummal, 16/276.
69 – Ibid, 16/279.
70 – Tabrani; Majmauz Zawaid, Nooruddin Haithami, 4/251.
71 – Sunan Saeed Bin Mansour, 1/122; Musanaf Abdul Razzaq, 6/170.
72 – Sahih Bukhari, 6/132, Istanbul, 1979.
73 – Fathul Bari Commentary of Sahih al-Bukhari, Ibn Hajar, 9/184, Riyadh.
74 – Hazrath Souda Bint Zam’ah, Hazrath Hafsa Bin Omar Farooq, Hazrah Zainab Bint Khuzaimah, Hazrath Umme Salma and Hazrath Umme Habiba Bint Abu Sufyan were widows, while Hazrath Zainat Bint Jahash was widow, who was earlier in the marriage of his adopted son, Zayd bin Haritha.