Islam, the State and Population Policy

Much has been written about the attitude of Islam to family planning and population control. In the past much of this writing took as its starting-point the observation that Muslim countries, and Muslim minorities in non-Muslim countries, tended to have high fertility. It was only a small step from this to the argument that high Muslim fertility was immutable, arising inevitably from elements in Islamic belief and family and social structure. More recently, fertility in many Islamic populations has fallen sharply, giving the lie to the 'Islamic fertility' argument. But many unanswered questions remain.Under what circumstances do Muslim populations experience sharp fertility declines? Are there elements of Islamic belief that require a different approach to understanding relative fertility trends and reproductive behavior in Islamic and in non-Islamic populations? The work examines some of these issues in the six largest Muslim-majority countries: Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Iran, Turkey and Egypt. Scholars from these countries examine fertility trends and their causes, development of official population policies, attitudes of Islamic leaders and scholars to reproductive health issues, and the role of Islamic political parties and opposition groups. It becomes clear that Islam remains relevant to population and reproductive health issues, but that its influence is complex and greatly influenced by the social and political context.