ABORTION

tIn the name of Allah, The Most Gracious and The Most Merciful.
Assalamu'alaikum warahmatullahhiwabarakaatuh.

Here, i just want to share some of the input that i got while reading the 'A-Z Guide to Ahadith' by Mokhtar Stork.

ABORTION

Provoked abortion is prohibited in Islam, unless it is done to save the life of the mother. It will be noted that Islam also prohibits infancitide. This practice of burying baby girls alive was practised before the advent of Islam. Wth the arrival of Islam it was prohibited. Provoked abortion without good reason is a sin committed by those who perform it as well as those who seek it or approve of it. The degree of sin increases with the life of the foetus in the womb.

Islamic scholars agree that abortion performed without reason is prohibited if the foetus is more than 120 days old. However, there are different opinions about performing it before the foetus is 120 days old. One group prohibits it just as if it were an abortion done without cause after 120 days. The other group considers it only makruh or hated when done without reason, before the foetus is 120 days old. Concerning rape, Dr. Yusuf Al-Qardawi, a contemporary Muslim scholar said that it is permissible for a woman who has been raped to seek an abortion, before the foetus is 120 days old. Such action is necessary because the cause for pregnancy was unwilling and forceful. And should a child be born out of such circumstances, it would have to suffer unduly for what it was not responsible for, and this would be sad and sinful towards an innocent child.

THE DEATH OF AN INFANT

Narrated Ibnu Shihab (r.a): " The funeral payer should be offered for every child even if he were the son of a prostitute as he was born with a true faith of Islam (i.e. to worship none but Allah alone). If his parents are Muslims, particularly the father, even if his mother were a non-Muslim, and if he after the delivery cries (even once) before his death (i.e. born alive) then the funeral prayer must be offered. And if the child does not cry after his delivery (i.e. born dead) then his funeral prayer should not be offere, and he will considered as a miscarriage. Abu Hurairah, narrated that the Prophet said, " Every child is born with a true faith (i.e. to worship none but Allah alone) but his parents convert him to Judaism or to Christianity or to Magianism, as an animal delivers a perfect baby animal. Do you find it mutilated? " Then Abu Hurairah recited the holy verses :

" The pure Allah's Islamic nature (true faith i.e. to worship none but Allah alone), with which he has created human beings.' (Surah Rum 30:30)

Wallahu a'lam.