Islamic Fiqh > Marriage and family > Pregnancy and pregnancy termination
Life in gestation: the embryo's status by stages, what jurists permit in danger, and patience around loss.
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Updated on 31 August 2026 at 3:55 AM
The OCI Fiqh Academy set the principle: "the embryo has a life to be protected and an inviolability to be safeguarded: neither its parents nor anyone else may harm it" (the Academy's resolution on abortion). Its resolution 181 (17/9) completes: the embryo is a human to be safeguarded, no abortion for any reason, except an extreme necessity in favor of the mother. The schools distinguish before and after the breathing of the soul (120 days): before, interruption is admitted only for a legitimate excuse established by an upright physician; after, only to save the mother's life.
This is also the doctrine of Dar al-Ifta al-Misriyya: before 120 days, documented medical necessity; after 120 days, only if continuing the pregnancy threatens the mother's life (fatwas 17369 and 18140). Al-Azhar (global center) sets the basic prohibition from the nutfah settled in the womb.
The trial expiates: "no fatigue, no illness, no worry touches a Muslim without Allah effacing thereby some of his faults" (al-Bukhari 6594). The child born without life: mourning is honored, rites performed according to the schools, and the Quran's word stands as comfort: "give good tidings to the patient" (surah al-Baqara 155-157).
Her life prevails: the rule of necessity lifts the prohibition, a unanimous juristic principle, applied by the Academy in its clause "except an extreme necessity" (resolution 181 (17/9)). "Do not kill yourselves" (surah an-Nisa 29) founds the priority given to the mother in danger. Contraception for spacing: see its page; sterility and assisted reproduction: see their page. The husband accompanies her to care: this is the commanded benevolence.
In a severe complication: the doctor-scholar pair decides urgently; the mother's life always prevails in the schools. The chapter's moral rule: every pregnancy is a trust, every loss an honored mourning, every medical decision a case laid before the two sciences.