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What is the Islamic view regarding a husband who is afflicted with AIDS refraining from having more children and from engaging in marital relations with his wife who desires to conceive, and is this considered an injustice to her?

1 min readAlso available in العربية

A husband must be chaste with his wife and give her her right to enjoyment and intercourse, unless he has an excuse. The obligatory intercourse is determined by the wife's need and the husband's ability. If the husband abandons his wife in bed to harm her, without any fault on her part, for more than four months, he is given the period of ila’ (vow of abstinence), and he is ordered to divorce or the judge divorces her on his behalf. Procreation is a mutual right between spouses, and neither has the right to prevent the other from it. It is not permissible for the husband to practice azl (coitus interruptus) with his free wife except with her permission. If the wife is harmed by the husband's abandonment of intercourse, she has the choice between remaining with him or seeking a divorce due to harm.

Summarized from the full answer at Ftawy · reviewed Sep 2, 2026

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