Muslims and birth control?

[dinty]

Are Muslims allowed to use any form of birth control? How do they feel about abortion?

[Lsura]

I didn’t know the answer, so I looked around a bit, and found this article that claims to analyze the Islamic perspective on BC. There’s a lot to the article, but one statement stood out:

Birth control should be viewed in the light of the above facts. Nevertheless, Islâm being a perfect code of life, permits certain methods of contraception for particular cases and for specific reasons.

Just below this, there are comments on specific types of contraception.

The article also says this about abortion:

In Islâm, abortion is primarily a prohibited sphere. The general rule is that abortion is harâm. Under certain circumstances, however, an abortion may be permissible. According to the Sharî’ah, the sin of abortion, once the limbs have formed, is the same as murder. An abortion prior to the limbs being formed would not carry the sin of murder, but still is a major sin.

I am not an Islamic scholar, so I cannot confirm how accurate this article is - it was interesting to read though.

[GilaB]

I’ve read over the last few years of how the government in Iran is promoting birth control for proper spacing of children; they’re Shiite, however, and I’m not sure how that applies to Sunni Muslims.

[plain_jane]

3 – It is permissible to use temporary means of contraception in order to increase the gaps between pregnancies, or to stop them for a limited period of time, if there is a valid shar’i reason for doing so, based on the couple’s estimation and with mutual consultation and agreement, subject to the condition that this does not result in harm and that the means is acceptable according to sharee’ah and will not damage any existing pregnancy.
(www.islam-qa.com)