and religious leaders to seek their support in influencing peoples’ behaviours and inculcating within them, a sense of responsible parenthood. “Religious leaders too are service providers as they are meeting the social needs of the people,” she added.
Earlier in her welcome remarks, Population Council Country Director Dr. Zeba A. Sathar highlighted the enduring importance of religion and religious scholars in rapidly changing conditions. She cited the examples of various Muslim countries that achieved remarkable success in improving their health indicators by involving religious leaders in health promotion activities. She said that empirical evidence collated to the Population Council shows that men in Pakistan are now keen to improve the health and wellbeing of their families and want to plan their families according to resources available to them so as to improve the living standard of the family. However, a matter of concern was the high unmet need for adopting family planning methods due to lack of access to services.
More importantly, Dr. Zeba pointed out, there is a lack of clarity in the minds of certain segments of the population regarding the permissibility of using family planning methods in Islam. She appreciated the fact that prominent Ulema had gathered in Islamabad during the holy month of Ramazan to commit their support to a national cause. “Scientific evidence clearly shows that birth spacing is the most effective way to dramatically reduce maternal and infant mortality,” she added.
Eminent 'ulema' and 'mashaikh' spoke on the occasion and extensively quoted from the Holy Quran and sayings of the Prophet (PBUH), endorsing the concept of birth spacing and the use of all methods that can help parents to better plan the timing and spacing of pregnancies with the eventual aim of achieving better health outcomes for the entire family.
Maulana Abdul Khabir Azad, grand 'imam' of the Badshahi Mosque, Lahore, said that the death of 14,000 mothers due to pregnancy-related causes was indeed a tragedy as these lives could have been saved if they did not have to endure the strain of repeated pregnancies. He said that according to the teaching of Islam, one life saved was akin to saving entire humanity.
The Ulema clearly offered all-out support to the government and relevant departments in helping to provide accurate information on the permissibility of adopting all measures that can help in insuring the wellbeing of the family and society as a whole.