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The Muslim world has one of the world's highest rate of population growth if not the highest. This is causing increasing human pressures upon a region of the globe that has suffered from millennia of abuse and degradation. Perhaps for this region, the Muslim world has been involved in more armed conflicts (mainly along the interface between the Muslim and non-Muslim worlds) than any other region of the world. (Africa has a similar rate of population growth and a similar number of armed conflicts.) "Islam has bloody borders (93H1)." Examples of sites of armed conflicts include Lebanon, Albania, Bosnia, Sarajevo, Serbia, Armenia, Bulgaria, Russia, Chechnya, Dagestan, the Caucasus, Pakistan, India, Burma, China, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, Eritrea/ Ethiopia, Sudan and other northeast African countries, Nigeria, Mauritania, and Algeria. However, before one extrapolates the past into the future, one should examine the changes that are taking place in the Muslim world in terms of falling fertilities, improvements in the status of women, and other evidence suggesting slower rates of population growth in the decades to come. Evidence useful for such an examination is given below. One should also examine the changing religious environment in the Muslim world and seek to determine to what degree the changes in population growth reflect changes in the religious environment. This is done at the end of this document.

High population growth rates in the Muslim world reflect a number of factors. The shortage of financial capital and the degraded state of Middle East lands causes people to use children as a social security system - the only social security system they think they can afford, despite the obvious counter-productivity. The low status of women in religious-fundamentalism-oriented Muslim societies prevents women from obtaining educations and good jobs, narrowing their life-shaping options and increasing their desired family sizes. Many of the more fundamentalist Muslim Mullahs take dim views of such family planning options as tubal ligation and vasectomy if not other forms of contraception. One result: the total fertility rate in India is 3.6 for Muslims, 2.8 for Hindus, and 2.4 for Christians (01U1). So the question arises as to whether it is politically possible to reduce population growth rates in the Muslim world. The tendency of Islamic fundamentalists to favor theocratic governments (e.g. the Taliban and Iran) would suggest that it is not possible. But evidence to the contrary is becoming increasingly easy to find.

The Muslim religion is a faith with no central doctrinal authority analogous to the Vatican. "Fatwahs" (religious edicts) that serve as the "bridge" between the Muslim's principles of their faith and modern life are supposed to be issued by religious scholars who look to the Koran and teachings of the Prophet Muhammad for guidance. But this "bridge" is weakening. Now, in Egypt alone, thousands of fatwas are issued every month. Religious and political leaders in the Muslim world are now saying that there is a crisis in Islam because too many fatwas are being issued, and that many of them reflect ideology more than learning. Technically, a fatwah is non-binding, and recipients are free to look elsewhere for a better ruling. There has been an explosion of places offering fatwas, from web sites that respond to written queries, to satellite television shows that take phone calls, to radical and terrorist organizations that set up their own fatwah committees. The relationship between the Koran and fatwas is increasingly a matter of dispute. Some Muslim scholars view the Koran's word and ideas as fixed, with little room for maneuvering. Other scholars see their job as one of reconciling modern life with the text by gently bending the text to fit new circumstances (07S1). This explains the broad range of views on family planning and contraception coming from Islam's Mullahs. As public opinion shifts toward more liberal views on family planning and contraception, fatwas tend to shift accordingly. This is analogous to Catholic laity increasingly ignoring the strict and unchanging Vatican's pronouncements on these same issues. Muslims don't need to be "Cafeteria Muslims." They can just find a Mullah whose fatwas are more to their liking and achieve the same effect, much like Christian Protestants seeking out a Protestant denomination to their liking.

Consider:

• A study by the Demographic and Social Statistics unit of the U.N. Statistical Division of December 2007 found that Arab birth rates are dropping dramatically, and that the number of births among women under the age of 20 is dropping even more sharply (08E1).
• Overwhelmingly, the only places in the world where high birth rates are still the norm are in sub-Saharan Africa, Central America and two Arab countries: Yemen and the Palestinian territories (08E1).
• The Total Fertility Rates (TFRs) of some Arab countries, notably Tunisia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait and Lebanon are either below, or very close to, the replacement level of 2.1 children per woman. Algeria and Morocco are at 2.4 and dropping fast. Some other Islamic countries are also in this zone of population stability or decline, including Turkey (2.1) and Indonesia (2.2) (08E1).
• Of the 10 countries that achieved the fastest reduction in the total fertility rate between 1980 and 1999, eight were Islamic countries (Times of India (5/6/2001)).
• Islam has not proven to be an obstacle to family planning in the Muslim countries of Iran, Egypt, Morocco, Tunisia and Bangladesh. All of these nations have reduced their birth rates successfully (04U1).
• In France, the birthrate of mothers of North African origin drops to the local norm within two generations. Women in North Africa who do not migrate to France have birthrates that are plummeting in a similar fashion (80E1).
• Algeria's population growth rate: 3.12%/ year in 1966-1977; 2.28%/ year in 1987-1997 (Xinhua, 7/6/1999).
• Algerian women now make up 70% of Algeria's lawyers, 60% of Algeria's judges and 60% of Algeria's university students. Women also dominate Algerian medicine. Women make up 20% of Algeria's work force, vs. 10% a generation ago. As a result, Algerian women are delaying marriage. Algerian women, in the past, typically married at age 17 or 18, but now marry on average at age 29. As a result, total fertility rates appear to have fallen, and class sizes in elementary schools have dropped by nearly 50%. Algeria permitted abortions for rape victims around 1998 amid efforts by Algerian women for rights that Muslim mullahs and Imans have strongly opposed in years past (07S1).
• Bangladesh's population growth rate: 3.0%/ year in 1973; 1.6%/ year in 1999 (Xinhua, 7/6/99). Today, the average woman in Bangladesh has 3 children compared to 6-7 children 30 years ago. The total fertility rate has dropped by half since 1975 (The Financial Express (5/17/2006)).
• Muslim leaders of Indonesia have declared that voluntary sterilization is an acceptable form of contraception. (Previously, many of these Muslim leaders had believed that tubal occlusion and vasectomy are forbidden in Islam.) (AVSC News (July 1990))
• Under Saddam Hussein, women in Iraq enjoyed some of the most modern legal protections in the Muslim world in the form of a civil code that prohibits marriage below the age of 18, arbitrary divorce and male favoritism in child custody and property inheritance disputes. But the US-backed Iraqi Governing Council has voted to wipe out these rights, ordering that family laws shall be "canceled" and such issues placed under the jurisdiction of strict Islamic legal doctrine known as Sharia. Some such Islamic laws allow men to divorce their wives on the spot (04U1).
• Jordan's Total Fertility Rate was 7.4 in 1977, and 3.7 in 2002 (Associated Press (12/ 2002)).
• Births/ woman in Morocco (06A1):

• Morocco's Total Fertility Rates: 5.6 in 1979, 2.5 in 2003 (06A1).
• Morocco's use of modern contraceptives: 38% in 1992, 55% in 2003 (06A1).
  (About 70% use of modern contraceptives is required to achieve replacement fertility.)
• Morocco's unmet needs for family planning: 16% in 1992, 11% in 2003 (06A1).
• Morocco (where laws are based on the Sharia (Islamic law)) recently adopted an entirely new family law that is consistent with the spirit of Islam, yet based on equal rights for both men and women (05M3).
• Even in such a deeply conservative Islamic nation as Pakistan, mosques across Pakistan distribute contraceptives and literature to spread awareness about the importance of family planning and safe sex. The message is also spread by the clerics in their sermons. (Indo-Asian News Service (12/18/2006)). As a result, Pakistan's population growth rate fell from 3.7%/ year in 1990 to 1.8% in 2006. ("Pakistan Population Growth Rate Halved Since 1990," Xinhua General News Service (2/1/2007).).
• 200 Muslim clerics in the Philippines have agreed that family planning is important. The Grand Mufti of Egypt said he too was for family planning. A fatwah was issued to Philippine Muslim communities where about 55% of women wanted to practice family planning but were afraid that Islam would not allow it. Vasectomies and ligations are not allowed, but the fatwah allows the use of legal contraception approved by a Muslim physician. Philippine Muslim clerics now have a more liberal view on family planning than the Philippine Catholic Church (04U2).
• About 200,000 (54%) of Saudi Arabian university students are women, vs. 70 in 1965. In the past 7 years, the number of female students in technical schools has risen ten-fold to 63,500. In the Saudi capital of Riyadh, the number of women members of the local chamber of commerce has risen ten-fold, to 2400. In Jidda, women own 25% of private businesses (Wall Street Journal (1/2/2002)).
• Arab Tunisia had 4 million people in 1957 when it gained independence from France; with a strong family planning program, it now has 9 million people and is one of the fastest-developing countries in the world. Its neighbor Algeria also had about 4 million in 1957; today it has 30 million people and is ensnared in seemingly endless civil war and chaos. There are many such examples. Once countries are caught in the explosive levels of population growth of a Nigeria, Pakistan or Algeria, they can't develop beyond the stage of hopeless conflict (99G1).
• Tunisia has enjoyed many years of an outstanding family planning program with the full support of the Muslim clergy (03N1). The total fertility rate in 2002 was 2.08, down from 7.2 in the 1960s. Its per-capita income is now $2070 - one of the highest in Africa. Tunisia's stability is attracting foreign investors that have helped it sustain a 5% annual growth rate of GDP over the past six years (vs. 2.6% in Morocco and 3.1% in Algeria). Another benefit: a very low incidence of HIV/AIDS. Much effort has also been expended on educating women and getting them into the workplace. There are now more women than men in local universities. Another reason for the success of the family planning program is the support it has been able to draw from Tunisia's religious leaders. Friday sermons in mosques are often devoted to reproductive health and related subjects (03N1). Nearly 80% of Tunisia's population is considered middle class. The poverty rate was 33% in 1967, but 4.2% in 2004. Almost 90% of Tunisia's citizens own their own houses, and have access to education, health facilities, and clean drinking water. There is virtually no problem of religious extremism in Tunisia. Polygamy is prohibited. ("Tunisia a Model Muslim Country for Women's Emancipation," Jakarta Post (5/27/2006).)
• Tunisia enjoys numerous benefits as a result of its population policy. One example: Contract enforcement in most of Africa is extremely costly and lengthy, reflecting high population growth rates and hence inadequate investments in legal/ judicial systems, an important part of any nation's infrastructure (04W1). However Tunisia, with its low population growth rate, can afford better legal/ judicial infrastructure, and so has one of the fastest procedures for contract enforcements in the world (05A1). This is part of why Tunisia is better able to attract external capital investments and invest more in human capital, which advances Tunisia's infrastructure and its human capital even further.
• Abortion is legal in Turkey and Tunisia (02T1).
• Yemen's most powerful sheikhs and imams are convinced that Islam (the Quran and the Sunnah) encourages family planning. Results thus far have been impressive. Messages on family planning, reproductive health and HIV/AIDS prevention are now delivered in the Friday sermons in mosques. Since 1990 Yemen's fertility rate has declined from 8.3 live births per woman to 6.2 in 2003. Maternal mortality has been more than halved, from 1400 deaths per 100,000 live births in 1990 to 366 in 2003 (07S2). Yemen still has one of the two highest fertility rates in the Muslim world (the other being the Palestinian territories). There is also a lot of political instability, armed conflicts and extreme problems with overdrafts of groundwater.

• The late Iranian spiritual leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, despite being a Muslim fundamentalist, revived Iran's national family planning program in December 1989, ruling that contraception was not un-Islamic. He encouraged people to have smaller families, citing this goal as a social responsibility in his weekly sermons. Religious and government leaders have also encouraged the use of all types of contraception (Reuters, 7/7/99).
• Iran's population growth rate dropped 50% in a decade to under 1.47%/ year in 1999 (The Christian Science Monitor, 11/19/1999). Iran's population growth rate was 1.2%/ year in 2001 (02U2). This 12-year drop in birth rates was one of the world's fastest (02T1).
• Iran's Total Fertility Rate (TFR) dropped from 5 children per woman to fewer than 3 between 1989-96, and to 2 in 2000 (02T1).
• The December 2007 study by the Demographic and Social Statistics unit of the U.N. Statistical Division found that Iran had a TFR of 2.0, but even more recent data found in the CIA Fact book suggests that Iran's real TFR is around 1.7 and some scholars put it even lower (08E1).
• In the area of fertility reduction, Iran accomplished in 10 years what took the rest of the developing world 3-4 decades to achieve. Help from the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) has been minimal (02U2).
• 74% of married Iranian women use a family planning method; 56% use modern methods. The gap between rural and urban areas in modern contraceptive use has closed (02T1).
• The average age at first marriage in Iran has risen since 1980 from around 17 for rural and urban women to 20 for rural and 21 for urban women in 2000 (02T1).
• Pre-marriage family planning counseling in Iran has helped raise the average marriage age from 19.9 in 1986, to 22.4 in 1999 (Reuters, 7/7/1999).
• From 1996 to 2000, Iran's percentage of never-married women has increased: for 20-to-24-year-olds, from 40% to 47%; and for 25-to-29-year-olds, from 15 to 21% (02T1).
• Iranian families are urged to space their births by 3-4 years, and to limit family size to 3 children (Earth Policy Institute (12/28/2001)).
• Iran discourages childbirth among women less than 18 or greater than 35 years old (Earth Policy Institute (12/28/2001)).
• The Iranian government restricts maternity leave benefits after 3 children, further discouraging larger family sizes (Earth Policy Institute (12/28/2001)).
• Iran withdraws food coupons and subsidized health insurance after the third child. The ruling clerics have approved all this (Reuters (7/7/99)).
• 75% of family planning services are provided free by Iran's Ministry of Health and Medical Education, mostly through a comprehensive health network made up of mobile clinics and 15,000 "health houses". Emergency contraceptives are being added to the services provided by Iran's health network (02U1).
• Iran's family planning success is attributed to great religious support, political commitment, and a good health infrastructure. Iran's education system is also cited as a reason - Iran's literacy rate has increased from 47% in pre-revolution days to 85% today. Health centers in remote areas of Iran are stocked with an array of free contraceptives. Sterilization is free for men and women (The Christian Science Monitor (11/19/1999)).
• In rural and urban Islamic Council elections in 1999 in Iran, more than 7250 women were candidates (02T1).
• In 2000, the majority of candidates accepted at Iranian government universities were women. (Still, the percentage of women who are economically active is 19% for those in urban areas and 28% for those in rural areas.) (02T1).
• Iran is the only country in the world that requires both men and women to take a class on modern contraception before receiving a marriage license (02U1).

One additional reason for the Muslim world's declining fertility is economic. A generation ago, 63% of Middle Eastern men in their mid- to late 20s were married. That figure has dropped to nearly 50% across the Middle East, among the lowest rates of marriage in the developing world. In Iran, 38% of the 25- to 29-year-old men are not married, one of the largest pools of unattached males in Iran's history. In Egypt, the average age at which men marry has increased to 31 (08S1). In Egypt and in other countries, like Saudi Arabia, governments help finance mass weddings, because they are concerned about the destabilizing effect of so many men and women who cannot afford to marry (08S1). Marriage in Egypt costs about $6000, 11 times annual household expenditures per capita (08S1). However this problem has spawned a side effect - the young are becoming more religious. Parents are increasingly sending their children to religious schools, and some countries have infused more religious content into their state educational systems. The religious fervor among the young is swelling support for Islam to play a greater role in political life (08S1). In 1986 there was a mosque for every 6031 Egyptians. By 2005 there was one mosque for every 745 people, and the population of Egypt nearly doubled during that interval (08S1). One might think then that this would make Muslim clerics more influential and better able to persuade Muslims to limit their use of contraception.

The reason why this is not happening is probably that it is the more fundamentalist clerics who take dim views of contraception. The more liberal clerics tend to take more positive views. Muslim fundamentalist clerics appear to be losing political power (08T1) despite the growing religious fervor of Muslim youth. In Pakistan, the political parties linked (or at least sympathetic) to the Taliban and al Qaeda won 3% of the vote in 2008, vs. 11% in the last general election a few years earlier. In the recent 2008 Pakistan election, the largest coalition of Islamist parties (the United Assembly for Action - MMA) lost control of the Northwest Frontier Province (the only one of Pakistan's four provinces it governed.) The party that won was the avowed secularist National Awami Party. In Jordan, in the November 2007 election, the Islamic Action Front share of the vote dropped to 5%, vs. 15% in 2003. The fundamentalist group linked with the Islamic Brotherhood movement kept 6 of its 17 seats in the National Assembly. In Malaysia, the Islamists have never gone beyond 11% of the popular vote. In Indonesia, the various Islamist groups have never collected more than 17% of the vote (08T1). In Bangladesh, the Islamist share of the popular vote declined from an all-time high of 11% in the 1980s to 7% in the late 1990s. In Algeria, in the latest general election (May 2007) the two Islamist parties ("Movement for a Peaceful Society" and "Algerian Awakening") won less than 12% of the popular vote. In Lebanon's last general election in 2005, the two Islamist parties Hezbollah ("Party of God") and Amal ("Hope") collected 21% of the popular vote despite massive financial and propaganda support from the Islamic Republic in Iran. In Egypt, in the latest general election in 2005, Muslim Brotherhood candidate collected less than 20% of the popular vote, despite widespread dissatisfaction with President Hosni Mubarak's authoritarian rule. In Tunisia and Libya, Islamists are banned. In Afghanistan, Islamist groups, including former members of the Taliban, have won around 11% of the popular vote in recent years. In Iran, frequent opinion polls show that support for avowed Islamist parties (both Shiite and Sunni) would not win more than 25% of the popular vote (08T1).

In Iran, fundamentalist Muslim Clerics control the government, but they do so only by essentially holding about 70% of the Iranian population at gunpoint, with frequent hangings and jail terms. In Pakistan, the Taliban gain control of local governments only by a combination of military action and terrorism against the more moderate Muslims who traditionally rule (08P1). In Iraq, young Iraqis are getting less religious (08T2) in contrast to the trend among young Muslims elsewhere in the Muslim world. They are mainly coming to hate fundamentalist clerics as they see all the violence, beheadings, etc. that these clerics foment (08T2). Iraq is becoming a showcase of what might happen when Muslim extremists' theories are applied (08T2). Professors are reporting increasing difficulty in recruiting graduate students for religion classes. Attendance at weekly prayers is dropping. Political parties are dropping overt references to religion. Among juvenile detainees in US custody, fewer than 10% claim to be fighting a holy war, vs. 33% of adult detainees (08T2).

It is probably the declining power and influence of fundamentalist Muslim clerics and the increasing power and influence of the more moderate Muslim clerics that is causing the increasingly more positive views toward contraception and family-planning, and hence the declining fertility rates that seems to characterize the modern-day Muslim world.

~ 93H1 Samuel Huntington, "Clash of Civilizations," Foreign Affairs, 73 (Summer 1993) p. 22.
~ 99G1 Georgie Ann Geyer, "Population Growth Is the Pivotal Issue in Economic Development", The Salt Lake Tribune (From the UN web site, 6/4/1999).
~ 01U1 United Nations, World Population Prospects: the 2000 Revision, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division, New York: United Nations (2001).
~ 02T1 Allison Tarmann, " Iran Achieves Replacement-Level Fertility", Population Today (May/ June 2002).
~ 02U1 Author Unknown, "Iran hits below-replacement fertility", Population Reference Bureau (5/20/2002).
~ 02U2 (Unknown) "Iran: Cutting Edge of Islam", The Times [London] (5/24/2002).
~ 03N1 Gautam Naik, "As Tunisia Wins Population Battle, Others See a Model", Wall Street Journal (8/8/2003).
~ 04U1 (Author unknown), "Niger; Young Population Booms as Family Size Increases", IRIN News (UN) (3/30/2004).
~ 04U1 (Unknown) "U.S.-Backed Iraqi Governing Council Votes Against Women's Rights", Washington Post (1/16/2004).
~ 04U2 (Unknown) "Philippines: Muslim Religious Leaders Support Family Planning", Philippine Daily Inquirer (3/12/2004).
~ 04W1 World Bank, "Doing Business in 2005 Sub-Saharan Africa: Regional Profile." World Bank, Washington, DC (2004)).
~ 05A1 K. Y. Amoako et al, "Economic Report on Africa 2005: Meeting the Challenges of Unemployment and Poverty in Africa," Economic Commission for Africa (September 2005) http://www.uneca.org ecainfo@uneca.org P.O. Box 3001, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
~ 05M3 Valentine Moghadam, Farzaneh Roudi-Fahimi, "Reforming Family Laws to Promote Progress in the Middle East and North Africa," Population Reference Bureau (PRB) (December 2005), http://topics.developmentgateway.org/population/rc/ItemDetail.do~1062629?intcmp=700
~ 06A1 Mohamed Ayad and Farzaneh Roudi, "Fertility decline and reproductive health in Morocco: new DHS figures," Washington, DC, Population Reference Bureau (May 2006). (Web site visited 5/22/2006)
~ 07S1 Michael Slackman, "A Quiet Revolution in Algeria: Gains by Women," The New York Times (5/26/2007).
~ 07S2 Anna Sussman, "Yemeni Activists Couple Contraception with Islam," Women's E News (3/13/2007).
~ 08E1 Editorial, "Middle East fertility rates plunge," Middle East Times (1/25/08).
~ 08P1 Public Broadcasting System, Frontline documentary of 3/4/08 or 2/26/08.
~ 08S1Michael Slackman, "Dreams Stifled, Egypt's Young Turn to Islamic Fervor," The New York Times (2/17/08).
~ 08T1 Amir Taheri, "Islam at the Ballot Box," Wall Street Journal (2/21/08) p. A17.
~ 08T2 Sabrina Tavernise, "Violence Leaves Young Iraqis Doubting Clerics," The New York Times (3/4/08).

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