Abortion in the Islamic Judicial System

Abortion involves the process of expulsing, either manually or through medication, the human fetus before it has the capability of living outside the mother’s womb (GRISANTI 2000). For Muslims, their views on abortion comply with the Hadith, wherein its subject is to deduce the laws of Shari’ah, (DESAI 2014) opinions of religious scholars and analysts
Islam is heavily against abortion as is another pro-life individual. For Islam, the fetus is said to be a living soul already subsequently four months after gestation. Once the fetus has a living soul, aborting the child is forbidden with a few exemptions.
Why is Islam heavily against abortion to begin with? When is a fetus considered a living soul?
As mentioned previously, abortion is the act of removing the fetus from the womb via either surgical or medical ways. Abortion is also a controversy or a problem faced by not only Islam but also other religious sectors against such acts. This paper will focus on the Islamic point of view as to why it is forbidden to conduct and the rules involved in abortion.
Islam values human life and in the Qur’an, it states that “Take not life which Allah has made sacred.” (6:151) which is a literal translation to not take the life which Allah gives to a person and in the Qur’an, it explains that to kill a brethren or another human is to have killed all of mankind and if you were to save a life, then all of mankind’s lives were saved (05:32).
The way that Allah has made it clear with regards to human life has made it clear that killing people is ethically wrong. The Qur’an also makes it a point to not have people kill their own children due to fear for fear of poverty or when one does not have the ability to provide the needs of their child since Allah provides for them so there is no need to take the sacred soul which Allah has bestowed to a child (ROGERS 1999).
Some Islamic societies were also noted to have killed their children as sacrifices to their gods to which the Qur’an said that it is proper to obey Allah to a certain extent but to sacrifice your own child is still a wrong thing to do much to when Ibrahim were to sacrifice his own son, Ismail until Allah stopped him by saying that “You have already fulfilled your vision!” (ROGERS 1999).
To some people, even the companion of Islamic prophet Muhammad, Abdullah ibn Masud, believed that killing his own offspring out of fear of poverty is considered as the one of the gravest sins (second to be specific) to commit. Another common reason for murdering their children is for reasons of sex (ROGERS 1999) and is considered evil in accordance to Allah’s word:
* “And when a daughter is announced to one of them his face becomes black and he is full of wrath. He hides himself from the people because of the evil of that which is announced to him. Shall he keep it with disgrace or bury it (alive) in the dust? Now surely evil is what they judge.” (Qur’an 16:58-59). Allah believes that people should be killed for just reasons so to kill an individual before he or she reaches the age of reason is unjust and therefore, a grave sin.
As mentioned earlier, abortion is considered impermissible once the fetus has reached over 120 days. In the earlier stage, human existence is not so until flesh is completed. A fetus is just a lump until Allah has established its final shape.
The time period for the shaping of the human fetus are divided into 40 days each. The first of the forty days is that the sperm is in the womb without having any change in its condition. The second half bears the responsibility of fetus to become a clot, thus it becomes bigger and upon the last half of the 120 days, Allah sends an angel which he wills to determine the characteristics of the child such as whether the child is a he or she, joyous or depressive, meek or dominant, healthy or sickly, and more (ROGERS 1999).
Although aborting within the first 120 days of gestation is ethically wrong in Islamic law, it is no more considered as killing or murder where in the act in this period falls into the following: corporeal wound, oath breaking, which both requires penance. However, to kill a little one is considered as one of the gravest sins of both the Qur’an and Hadith (ROGERS 1999).
There is also a set of rules which guards the process of abortion (Technically a systematized process of some of the above mentioned). The rules will be discuss...