I WAS one of the first people who wrote about the necessity of birth control and the perils of population growth. I wrote this nine years ago in the daily Okaz. What I wrote then was considered a deviation and a crossing of the line. It was bitterly attacked by a number of pens and on many Internet sites. For the first time, people took note of the birth rate in the Kingdom, which was increasing by 4 percent annually, making it among the highest birth rates in the world.
Many Shariah students were upset by what I wrote. They cited a Hadith of the Prophet (peace be upon him) in which he asked Muslims to multiply “because I will be boasting of your number on doomsday.”
This was an example of quoting out of context since what was meant by “boasting” was boasting of the numbers of the best and the highest quality and not every single person. The Prophet likened the nation that is large in number but weak in strength as “flood foam,” which is what the Islamic world has been suffering from for centuries.
The increase in birth rates means problems in bringing up children and poor education. It means overcrowded classrooms, unemployment and heavily populated cities. These are some of our contemporary problems.
If Muslims, including us, followed the example of the Chinese and allowed each family to have a single child, we would not have the problem of over-population. The Chinese penalizes any family that has more than one child. By doing so, they have put an end to the problem of over-population and thus have been able to progress and develop. We have not yet realized this fact.
Uncontrolled birth rates will bring with them poverty, illiteracy, sickness, backwardness and terrorism. We have not been able to interpret the religious ruling in a proper and scientific manner. We have been flooding our country with new births whose demands we are unable to fulfill. All the projects of expansion and construction will be swallowed by the enormous increase in population.
Sheikh Salman Al-Oudah made me happy when he finally had the courage to call for birth control in order to save the country and bring up a new generation. When I said the same thing several years ago, the newspapers shied away from examining my comments. Time is passing and our people must realize this. I hope that Sheikh Al-Oudah will raise his voice and enlighten people about new developments.
