Islamic logics, reproductive rationalities: family planning in northern Pakistan

Abstract

This paper explores the use of Islamic doctrine and jurisprudence by family planning organizations in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of northern Pakistan. It examines how particular interpretations of Islam are promoted in order to encourage fertility reductions, and the ways Muslim clerics, women and their families react to this process. The paper first discusses how Pakistan's demographic crisis, as the world's sixth most populous nation, has been widely blamed on under-funding for reproductive health services and wavering political commitment to family planning. Critics have called for innovative policy and programming to counter ‘excessive reproduction’ by also addressing socio-cultural and religious barriers to contraceptive uptake. Drawing on two years of ethnographic research, the paper examines how family planning organizations in Gilgit-Baltistan respond to this shift by employing moderate interpretations of Islam that qualify contraceptive use as a ‘rational’ reproductive strategy and larger families as ‘irrational’. However, the use of Islamic rhetoric to enhance women's health-seeking agency and enable fertility reductions is challenged by conservative Sunni ulema (clergy), who seek to reassert collective control over women's bodies and fertility by deploying Islamic doctrine that honors frequent childbearing. Sunnis’ minority status and the losses incurred by regional Shia-Sunni conflicts have further strengthened clerics’ pronatalist campaigns. The paper then analyses how Sunni women navigate the multiple reproductive rationalities espoused by ‘Islamized’ family planning and conservative ulema. Although Islamized family planning legitimizes contraceptive use and facilitates many women's stated desire for smaller families, it frequently positions women against the interests of family, community and conservative Islam.

Keywords:

• Islam
• family planning
• reproductive rationality
• northern Pakistan

Acknowledgements

The author wishes to thank Dr Michael Lambek and Dr Janice Graham for their support and guidance during the doctoral and post-doctoral fieldwork on which this paper is based. The author also wishes to acknowledge the feedback generously provided by Dr Milena Marchesi, Dr Silvia De Zordo and two anonymous reviewers. Research was granted ethics approval by the University of Toronto's Research Ethics Board (REB 12505; 2004–2005) and Dalhousie University's Office of Research Services (2010–2192; 2010). Research funding was provided by a SSHRC Doctoral Fellowship, an IDRC Doctoral Research Award (University of Toronto) and a Killam Postdoctoral Fellowship (Dalhousie University).

Conflict of Interest: none.

Notes

1. For the purposes of this paper, the term ‘Islamized’ family planning is derived from the broader concept of ‘Islamization’, which entails the reassertion of Islamic principles in Pakistan's socio-economic, political and legal spheres.

2. The Ministry of Population Welfare was devolved to Pakistan's provinces and territories in 2010 (Gul Khattak 2011).

3. Gilgit-Baltistan's population control lobby fails to incorporate the sometimes coercive regulatory and surveillance mechanisms characteristic of reproductive biopolitics in other areas of South Asia (see Van Hollen 2004). For example, regional family planning programs do not include the forced or surreptitious provision of contraceptives or surgical sterilization.

4. Because Ismaili and Shia communities have been comparatively more involved and invested in regional development than Sunnis, this has led to the clustering of benefits, awareness, behavioral and attitudinal change along sectarian axes. The Ismaili Aga Khan Health Service, Pakistan's (AKHS,P) achievements in reducing fertility and birth rates among Ismailis stands as a notable example (see Hertzman 2001).

5. These publications are ‘Islam and Family Planning’ (‘Islam aur Khandanee Mansoobah Bandee’; Phulwari n.d.), ‘About Family Planning: The Beliefs and Fatwas of the Scholars’ (‘Khandanee Mansoobah Bandee sey Mutaliq: Ulmaie Deen key Afqar Fut’wah’, FPAP n.d.(a)), ‘Precious Pearl’ (‘Anmol Motee’; FPAP n.d.(b)), and ‘Family Planning in the Legacy of Islam’ (‘Islami Miraz meh Khandanee Mansoobah Bandee’, Imran 1998).

6. In ways that may complicate Shias' and Ismailis’ use of these resources, FPAP publications rely predominantly on the edicts generated by Sunni-Hanafi jurists affiliated with prominent seminaries (madrasas) and Islamic universities across Pakistan, India and also Egypt (FPAP n.d.(a), 7; Phulwari n.d., 81, 99–101). Family Planning in the Islamic Republic of Iran, on the other hand, uses Iranian and Iraqi-Shia jurisprudence (see Hasna 2003, Tremayne 2004, Tober, Taghdisi and Jalali 2006).

7. Other jurists note the Prophet's injunction for infants to be weaned only after two years and his prohibition of breastfeeding during pregnancy as evidence of his support of lactation as a ‘natural’ form of birth spacing (Phulwari n.d., 55).

8. Elective abortion is illegal according to Pakistani law.

9. Because of the divisive nature of inter-sectarian relations during and after the 2005 ‘tension times’, providers deferred from speaking about Islam or issues of sectarian identity with their patients.

10. See Haniffa (2008), Huq (2008), and Marsden (2007) for ethnographic examination of the ways Islamic reformist texts are disseminated to and utilized by Muslim women in Bangladesh and Pakistan.

11. At the time of the author's research, six of 30 urban participants were pregnant. Four participants were actively trying to conceive, while the remaining 20 admitted to using some form of contraception.