What does Islam say about abortion?

Few questions are asked with more anguish than this one, by women and couples facing a pregnancy in hard circumstances. Islam honors the life growing in the womb, and it honors the woman who carries it. The classical jurists, reading the Quran’s account of the stages of creation alongside the hadith on ensoulment, held that a pregnancy gains moral weight as it develops. The stronger view is that abortion is permitted in early pregnancy for a sound reason, with the first weeks the lightest of all, and that after ensoulment it is permitted to save the mother’s life. The woman, who bears the pregnancy in her own body, weighs her reasons before Allah.

What does the Quran say about abortion?

The Quran does not mention abortion by name. It describes the growth of a human being in stages:

ثُمَّ خَلَقۡنَا ٱلنُّطۡفَةَ عَلَقَةٗ فَخَلَقۡنَا ٱلۡعَلَقَةَ مُضۡغَةٗ فَخَلَقۡنَا ٱلۡمُضۡغَةَ عِظَٰمٗا فَكَسَوۡنَا ٱلۡعِظَٰمَ لَحۡمٗا ثُمَّ أَنشَأۡنَٰهُ خَلۡقًا ءَاخَرَۚ فَتَبَارَكَ ٱللَّهُ أَحۡسَنُ ٱلۡخَٰلِقِينَ

“Then We made the drop into a clinging form, and made the clinging form into a lump, and made the lump into bones, and clothed the bones with flesh. Then We brought it forth as another creation. Blessed is Allah, the best of creators.”

Quran 23:14

Ibn Kathir (d. 1373) records Ibn ʿAbbās (may Allah be pleased with him) explaining “another creation” as the soul (rūḥ) breathed into the body. The verse thus marks a turning point in the life of the womb, and the jurists built their rulings on it.

The verses that forbid killing one’s children “for fear of poverty” (17:31, 6:151) address children already born. They condemn the pre-Islamic burial of infant daughters, the girl who will be asked “for what sin she was killed” (Quran 81:8-9).

When does the soul enter the fetus in Islam?

The Prophet ﷺ described the stages of the womb in a famous hadith narrated by ʿAbdullāh ibn Masʿūd:

«إِنَّ أَحَدَكُمْ يُجْمَعُ خَلْقُهُ فِي بَطْنِ أُمِّهِ أَرْبَعِينَ يَوْمًا، ثُمَّ يَكُونُ عَلَقَةً مِثْلَ ذَلِكَ، ثُمَّ يَكُونُ مُضْغَةً مِثْلَ ذَلِكَ»

“Each of you is gathered in his mother’s womb for forty days, then becomes a clinging form for the same span, then a lump of flesh for the same span.”

Sahih al-Bukhari 3208

After these three periods, the hadith continues, an angel is sent and the soul is breathed in: at 120 days. Another report speaks of the angel coming to shape the embryo after forty-two nights (Sahih Muslim 2645a). From these two reports came the two thresholds that run through the fiqh of abortion: forty days and 120 days.

What do the four schools say about abortion?

• Hanafi. Ibn al-Humām (d. 1457) wrote in Fatḥ al-Qadīr that abortion is permitted “as long as nothing of it has taken shape,” which the Hanafis linked to 120 days. Al-Ḥaṣkafī (d. 1677) permitted it before ensoulment for a valid excuse (ʿudhr), and Ibn ʿĀbidīn (d. 1836) records the classic example: a nursing mother whose milk stops with a new pregnancy, whose husband cannot pay a wet nurse, and who fears for the baby at her breast. Some Hanafis called early abortion disliked (makrūh).
• Shafi’i. Shams al-Dīn al-Ramlī (d. 1596) wrote in Nihāyat al-Muḥtāj that the preferred view forbids abortion after ensoulment and permits it before. Al-Qalyūbī agreed, noting that al-Ghazali had taken the stricter line.
• Hanbali. Al-Mardāwī (d. 1480) wrote in al-Inṣāf that taking medicine to expel the early embryo is permitted, and he reports that Ibn ʿAqīl permitted abortion before ensoulment. Ibn al-Jawzī disagreed.
• Maliki. The Maliki school was the strictest of the four. Al-Dardīr held that the embryo may not be expelled even before forty days.
• Jaʿfari. Shia jurists generally forbid abortion from early pregnancy, allowing it when the mother’s life is at risk.

In modern times the Council of Senior Scholars in Saudi Arabia permitted abortion in the first forty days for a legitimate benefit or to prevent harm.

When is abortion allowed after 120 days?

After ensoulment the scholars agree that abortion is forbidden except to save the mother. Egypt’s Dar al-Ifta, in a 2004 fatwa by Ali Gomaa, permitted abortion at that stage only when the mother’s life is in danger. Jurists who hold this explain that her life is established and certain, the life of the fetus depends on hers, and the sharia chooses the lesser of two harms. Doctors and the mother decide together when that point has come.

Is abortion allowed for rape or a severe fetal condition?

In February 1990 the Islamic Fiqh Council of the Muslim World League, meeting in Mecca, ruled that abortion before 120 days is permitted when a medical committee finds the fetus gravely malformed with an untreatable condition, at the parents’ request. In 2005 Iran’s parliament approved a law allowing abortion in the first four months for severe fetal conditions or a threat to the mother’s life. Many contemporary scholars count pregnancy from rape among the valid reasons for ending a pregnancy before 120 days, and encourage acting early. On disability and dignity more widely, see What does Islam say about disability?

Who makes the decision?

The Quran speaks of pregnancy as something a woman carries in her own body, at a cost:

حَمَلَتۡهُ أُمُّهُۥ كُرۡهٗا وَوَضَعَتۡهُ كُرۡهٗا

“His mother carried him with hardship and gave birth to him with hardship.”

Quran 46:15

The reasons the jurists accepted, from a mother’s failing milk to danger to her health, all turn on her wellbeing and her family’s. The decision belongs to her, made with her conscience, her doctors, and the people she trusts. “Allah wants ease for you” (2:185). Family and community owe her privacy and kindness, and no one may shame her. The Quran’s wider vision of women is set out in What does the Quran say about women?, and preventing an unwanted pregnancy, which is easier still, is discussed in Is birth control haram?

Several Muslim-majority countries also permit abortion in early pregnancy by law, among them Tunisia (since 1973) and Turkey (since 1983).

What if I have had an abortion?

Many women carry an abortion in silence for years. On the stronger view, an early abortion for a sound reason carries no sin. If you feel regret or grief, bring it to Allah, who said, “Do not despair of the mercy of Allah; Allah forgives all sins” (39:53). See Does Allah forgive all sins? Grief after a pregnancy ends, by choice or by miscarriage, is real, and it deserves gentleness from you and from those around you.

A closing duʿāʾ

The last verse of Sūrat al-Baqara gives every believer words for the weight they carry:

رَبَّنَا وَلَا تُحَمِّلۡنَا مَا لَا طَاقَةَ لَنَا بِهِۦۖ وَٱعۡفُ عَنَّا وَٱغۡفِرۡ لَنَا وَٱرۡحَمۡنَآ

“Our Lord, do not lay on us what we have no strength to bear. Pardon us, forgive us, and have mercy on us.”

Quran 2:286

May Allah grant every woman facing this question clarity, health, and peace, and surround her with mercy in whatever she decides.