Question:

What is the ruling concerning putting limitations to the amount of offspring one has?

Answer:

The person that limits his offspring without having a legitimate reason for doing so, I hold him to be foolish if not a disbeliever in the Qadaa and the Qadar (Divine Execution and Preordainment) of Allaah. This is since the individual that limits his progeny to only three children, for example, and he has reached the age of fifty (!), the thought of death does not even cross his mind, or that some violent storm should come and take the lives of his three children, thus leaving him till the end of his life as if he were barren and without offspring. Therefore, those that put limits to the amount of children they have, they do not reflect upon the things that every Muslim reflects on. And it is Al-Qadar (Preordainment), which befalls the people in the way that He wants, not in the way that they want. So this practice that is done in current times, is a severe negligence and a clear deprivation.

Shaykh Naasir ud-Deen al-Albaanee

Al-Asaalah No. 2