Islamic Guidelines in Promoting Fertility: A Narrative Reviewa

Abstract

Population is most important asset in each country. Fertility is one of the main issues in demography. It is also an important element of population growth during recent years. Iran’s population has been experiencing important changes in its age structure due to the continuous decline in fertility. Presently, Iran is one of the countries that has low fertility rates. These changes, on the one hand, bear substantial considerations in terms of economic, social, policy and planning making and planning strategies, on the other hand religious government cannot stay indifferent to the religious priorities in the social, economic and family planning, thus, statesmen need to be aware of this phenomenon. This study intends to introduce Quranic guidelines and Islamic traditions concerned with fertility. In this narrative review, documents without a time limit and using the keywords Quran, Fertility, Population, Islam and Iran, alone or in combination in the alone or in combination in the Persian and English databases were searched. Also fully reviewed all 114 Surahs and other religious sources to find the verses and narrations and hadiths specifically referring to the fertility. The documents were summarized and critiqued. In Quran, there are various verses which point to infertility and human reproduction. in Surahs Al-Shura, Al-Nuh, Al-Nour , Al-Anam, Al- Nisa, Al- Tawbah, Al- Ahzab, Al- Baqarah, Al- Qiyamat, Al- Tariq, Al- Fatir, Al- Qasas, Al- Momen, Al- Ra’d, Al- Anbiya, Al- Talaq, l- Al-Imran, Al- An’am, Al- Isra, Al- Mursalat. Since being ignorant to the issue of fertility in the current situation in Iran can lead to a decrease in political, social, and economic power, it is rational to pay special attention to fertility based on the mentioned cases, and especially, the importance of the concept of fertility in the Quran and Islamic sources.

Keywords

• islamic guidelines
• population
• fertility