Significant Effects of Fatwa-Based Perception on Contraceptive Practice Among Muslim Women in South Jordan Under the Early Stage of Fertility Transition

Abstract

An interview survey of 450 Muslim women in a rural village of south Jordan under the early stage of fertility transition was conducted to explore major causes of contraceptive use, taking both their sociodemographic attributes and fatwa (Islamic jurisprudence)-based perception into account. Discriminant analysis, which was performed for the subject women divided into 15- to 29-, 30- to 39-, and 40- to 49-year age groups, revealed that "the number of living children" in the former and "to do contraception for good care of children" in the latter played significant roles in discrimination into contraceptive user and nonuser groups for any age groups. To cope with demographically and socioeconmically vulnerable situations, contraceptive prevalence rate should be increased by means of government-led family planning programs in cooperation with the imam (Muslim religious leaders and priests) through fatwa, in which special attention is paid to traditional norms, represented by good childcare.

Are users of modern and traditional contraceptive methods in Jordan different?

“…This might be explained by the greater number of educational materials and centres available for women in urban areas, which may make the effect of the women's education minimal or disappear. Previous Jordanian studies have found that education level and economic status play an essential role in influencing the use of contraceptive methods (20)(21)(22)(23), but these studies did not examine the effect of the woman's education level on selecting the type of contraceptive method. Other studies have also found the association still holding between education and use of family planning methods.…”

Factors influencing sexual and reproductive health of Muslim women: a systematic review

“…From the personal domain, knowledge about family planning methods and available health services was discussed as a factor influencing women's SRH [19-21, 25, 26, 28, 30, 32, 33, 35, 39, 43-45, 47-53, 68, 70, 77, 79, 80, 83, 86, 87, 89, 90]. Insufficient knowledge about contraception and lack of basic reproductive knowledge was reported as one of the main barriers to contraception use among Muslim women [20,26,29,31,39,41,46,83,90,91]. Some women are unaware of services available for them [69,74,75,78,87], particularly unmarried women [74,75,78].…”

“…While the other group strongly oppose the use of family planning, except when used for medical reasons [76,82,86,88,89,91]. For many women, the use of family planning is believed to be permissible in Islam as long as it is used for child spacing and not limiting the number of children [46,86,88,89,91].…”

Religious leaders gain ground in the Jordanian family‐planning movement

“…Religious leaders are important opinion leaders in Jordan and can influence women's contraceptive use [11,12]. A previous study found RLs to be equally or more knowledgeable than the general public about matters of reproductive health and family planning, so they could be a positive influence [7].…”