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What is the religious ruling on a husband's insistence on aborting the fetus, and is the current pregnancy—which continued after a miscarriage—and what happened in the last two pregnancies, considered a sign of Allah's pleasure, forgiveness, and a warning to the husband?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

Abortion for fear of poverty is forbidden by Islamic law, and it is not permissible for the wife to obey her husband in this, because "there is no obedience to a creature in disobedience to God." Reluctance to procreate for fear of poverty is a poor assumption about God, and He, glory be to Him, has guaranteed the sustenance of children. The answering of prayer may be a grace or a gradual drawing away (istidraj), so one must combine hope and fear, and repentance and turning to God in the case of istidraj. The answering of prayer does not always mean giving the exact request or at the specified time; rather, it occurs in one of three ways: expediting the supplication, saving it for the hereafter, or averting an equivalent evil. One must have a good assumption about God and not despair. It cannot be definitively stated that what happened in the last two pregnancies was a warning to the husband, and God alone bestows offspring.

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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