Dr Muhammad Kamaldeen, a senior lecturer with the University of Ilorin, has advised infertile couples against alternative parentage, urging them to seek medical help.
Kamaldeen, who gave the advice in an online Ramadan lecture on Wednesday in Ilorin, spoke on alternative parentage and its prohibitions.
According to him, couples should seek medical treatment and never think of alternative parentages such as surrogacy, egg and sperm donorship as it is not allowed in Islam.
He said that the Shari’a affirms the importance of marriage, family, and procreation, so treatment of an infertile couple was encouraged because it made procreation possible.
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“The Islamic Fiqh Council, after reviewing all the research submitted on in-vitro fertilisation and after consulting experts in the field, concluded that five forms of in vitro fertilisation are prohibited, while two are allowed
“The five procedures that are completely illegal are egg donorship, sperm donorship, Gestational Surrogacy, Egg and sperm donorship and Co-Wives Surrogacy because they result in confusion,” he said.
The scholar said that the procedures were like adultery (Zina) since the surrogate mother would carry the fertilised egg of someone else, who was not her legal husband.
“It is a violation of fidelity, as it changes the biological relationship between parents and offspring, and threatens the integrity of lineage or kinship.
“The child produced, therefore, has no lineage through legal marriage and will have to be considered as illegitimate.
“Therefore, if the product is haram, the means of acquiring the product (the surrogate’s renting of her womb) is also haram.
“There is an overwhelmingly high probability for an emotional and legal confrontation between the two mothers.
“The most compelling evidence of this position is in the holy Qur’an (Suratul al-Mujadalah v58: 2);
“Where it is stated that: ‘…their mothers are only those who conceived them and gave birth to them,” the don said.
Kamaldeen said that in the relationship between a husband and wife there was no room for the third party, no matter who he or she might be; not for renting a womb or for donating sperm or donating eggs.
He said that the entire surrogate procedure amounted to dehumanising the process of human procreation by reducing the womb to the level of a commodity that could be bought or rented as a service.
“Ultimately, such a process, yet again, violates the dignity and honour that Allah Almighty has bestowed on men and women.
“According to Shaykh ‘Abd-Allaah ibn ‘Abd al-Rahmaan al-Jibreen: The idea of renting wombs been made attractive to some people and they say, ‘there is nothing wrong with it.
“Undoubtedly this is haram, primarily because Allah has commanded us to guard our chastity.
“… Those who guard their chastity (i.e. private parts, from illegal sexual acts) except their wives or (the slaves) that their right hands possess, for them, they are free from blame.
“So Allah has forbidden us to engage in sexual activity with anyone except our wives and female slaves, i.e., having intercourse with them (female slaves) on the basis of possession.
“This undoubtedly requires looking at the private parts which are forbidden to see, and it also requires collecting sperm and extracting the eggs and placing them in other wombs,” he said.
The scholar, however, said that two in-vitro fertilisation procedures are lawful: Genetic Surrogacy and Artificial Insemination.
“Muslim scholars who studied the new techniques developed to help women get pregnant have ruled that they are permissible only when they involve married couples.
“No one else should be involved; this means that artificial fertilisation is permissible if the wife’s egg is fertilised by her husband’s sperm and then the fertilised egg is inserted in her uterus and not in the uterus of another woman,” he said.
Kamaldeen prayed Almighty Allah to heal all infertile couples and all other sick people around the world.
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