Infanticide in Medieval Muslim Society

Abstract

Infanticide is known to have been a common means of birth control from early, apparently even prehistoric times.¹ In societies that lacked any precise knowledge of the fertilisation process and consequently methods for its prevention, infanticide was used more frequently than other known methods of population limitation, such as abstention from intercourse and abortion.² Infanticide was expected to serve several functions:

General reduction in population numbers (including twin removal), removal of defectives, elimination of social ‘illegitimates’ (i.e., offspring whose existence violated social group boundaries), response to the loss of the nursing mother, control of dependency ratio, manipulation of sex ratio, and finally, use as a backstop to other methods when those fail.³