Millions of couples worldwide have expanded their families through assisted reproductive technology, and surrogacy remains among the field’s more controversial applications. For many Muslim couples who are unable to conceive, their struggles with infertility carry with them an additional burden: that of religious conscience. What, if anything, does Islam have to say about surrogacy? Or does any perspective accept surrogacy in Islam?
Truthfully, there is no universally accepted religious verdict. For as long as science has allowed men and women to achieve pregnancies outside of sexual intercourse, there have been vigorous debates within Islam, and in the practice of its two principal sects, Sunni and Shia Islam, their verdicts could not be more divergent.[3]
The majority of Sunni fiqh councils reject surrogacy, even the non-biologically related gestational form. Several modern-day Shia jurists do allow a conditional form of the practice, however, with most prominently doing so in Iran. This article systematically examines the Islamic approach to surrogacy, including what surrogacy is in a fiqh context, the reasoning of each side, and the similarities and differences between Sunni and Shia approaches.
It should be emphasized that this article is not intended as a fatwa and should in no way substitute for advice given by a qualified religious scholar who takes the particulars of a given case into consideration. All the data in this piece is based on the latest information as of jun 2026.
What Is Surrogacy?
From a medical point of view, surrogacy is where a woman bears and gives birth to a child for another person or persons (the intended parents). There are basically two kinds and two different perspectives from Islamic scholars:
- Traditional surrogacy: This kind of surrogacy takes use of the surrogate mother’s egg, which is fertilized with the intended father’s sperm. The surrogate mother will be the biological mother.
- Gestational surrogacy: The surrogate mother only serves for gestation, in which an embryo created by IVF is transferred into her womb. The surrogate mother will not be the biological mother. [4].
The authors of discussions of surrogacy in Islamic law have created lists of the most commonly considered individual forms, upon which the different schools of thought in Islamic jurisprudence have ruled individually, including a couple’s embryo carried by a third, volunteer party; an embryo formed of the husband’s sperm and second wife’s egg carried by a different, third wife; the use of donated sperm with a wife’s egg; and even, in a very extreme speculative instance, the transfer of an embryo that had been frozen after the genetic parents have died. Each of these presents a slightly different legal problem, and this is just part of what has made it so hard to render a definitive answer.
What Does Islam Say About Surrogacy?
Three concepts come up again and again in Islamic scholarship on surrogacy, regardless of which school of thought a scholar follows.
First is nasab (genealogy/family name/lineage/ancestors). Islam, says scholar Muna Idris, mandates a very strict, unambiguous connection between a person’s biological parents as one of its primary functions, Sharia objectives called hifz al-nasl, protection of lineage. A contract of surrogacy by its nature separates the roles of childbearing and genetic parentage, and the division between those roles represents the heart of almost every concern that Islamic jurists have regarding the use of surrogacy. [4].
Secondly, there is the marital boundary regarding reproduction. Jurists, classical and modern, understood the Quran as restricting lawful procreation to a formal marriage, husband and wife, with neither a donor nor surrogates entering into the relationship [4].
In its upcoming comparative research study of the intersection of Islamic jurisprudence and Arab civil law in 2025, it conceptualizes the dispute as revolving around whether a married couple can “pay another woman for the use of her uterus and yet maintain her (or their) status as the child’s parentage in relation to the married couple, rather than the carrier’s [2]. A majority of those who have commented have indicated that the participation of a third body in the generation of the child, in the absence of any element resembling a sexual act, corrupts the principle of conjugality as defined in Islamic family law.
Third, the structure of the family. According to a 2013 cross-cultural bioethics study from the U.S. National Library of Medicine, Islamic bioethics views the issues raised here more black and white than secular Western bioethics, taking a more hard-line stance against surrogacy due to the established bloodline and the potential for general social collapse, as against one that takes an interest-based approach to determining an issue like surrogacy on a case-by-case basis[1]. That contrast helps explain why so much of the Islamic view on surrogacy centers on principle rather than individual circumstance, even when a particular couple’s situation seems sympathetic.
Surrogacy in Islam: A Sunni Perspective
While there is no single supreme Sunni religious authority on the matter, a handful of well-known Fiqh (Islamic Law) organizations have officially ruled on it, and their rulings converge on one point. The Islamic Fiqh Academy in Mecca issued an opinion in 1985, which the International Islamic Fiqh Academy endorsed in 1986 -both ruled surrogacy is prohibited [2]. Egypt’s Islamic Research Academy confirmed a similar view in 2001, and similar opinions have been expressed by Al-Azhar University, the office of the Saudi Grand Mufti, etc.
Sunni Islam does not have a single central religious authority, but several major fiqh bodies have addressed surrogacy directly, and their conclusions point in the same direction. The Islamic Fiqh Academy in Mecca ruled on the question in 1985, and the International Islamic Fiqh Academy followed with a resolution in 1986; both found that pregnancy for the benefit of a third party is impermissible [4].
The rationale behind surrogacy in Islamic Sunni practice has its roots in the aforementioned “third-party problem”. Since surrogates do not enter into the marriage covenant with the genetic father, many Sunni scholars see the act of introducing his sperm, or an embryo thereof, into her body as equivalent to intercourse outside of marriage, which is strictly prohibited by the sharia, regardless of the lack of physical contact 3]. This holds true for both gestational and natural surrogacy, and the fact that there is no genetic relation between the surrogate and child is considered an insufficient counterargument for most Sunni authorities, a view differing from some of their Shia counterparts.[4]
Within Sunni law, the Hanafi school has been implicated in a very limited, conditional exception to this restriction. Some 20th-century Hanafi-influenced jurists – including proposals by the Syrian scholar Sheik Mustafa al-Zarqa – have debated that an unborn child carried by a husband’s second wife that originated from his sperm and his first wife’s egg, may be allowed due to the exclusion of all third parties[2]. While a Hanafi fiqh academy provisionally agreed to this proposal in one meeting, they subsequently decided against it, making the acceptance of such a concept still something of a minority viewpoint, rather than mainstream Hanafi practice[2] While within Sunni Islam, for Muslim couples, surrogacy is still often discouraged through Hanafi jurisprudence, the second-wife concept remains a more often cited footnote rather than an accepted solution.
Surrogacy in Islam Shia Perspective
Shia jurisprudence has reached a more varied set of conclusions, largely because of how it applies ijtihad, independent juristic reasoning, and the principle of maslaha, or public benefit, to questions the classical texts never anticipated[3]. The most consequential ruling came in 1999, when Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, issued a fatwa permitting surrogacy under defined conditions: the embryo must come from the egg and sperm of a legally married couple, no inappropriate contact or gaze between the surrogate and the husband may occur, and the arrangement must be governed by a clear, fair contract[3]. Iran subsequently became one of the only Muslim-majority countries where gestational surrogacy is both religiously sanctioned and legally regulated[3].
Other senior Shia authorities have weighed in with differing views, and accounts of exactly where some of them stand are not entirely consistent across sources. A reminder that surrogacy is allowed in islam shia communities remains a genuinely contested question rather than a settled one. Ayatollah Safi Golpayegani has been described as supportive of surrogacy under conditions similar to those Khamenei set out, while Ayatollah Fazel Lankarani and Ayatollah Khoei have taken an opposing position Ayatollah Sistani, who is followed by a large share of Shia Muslims outside Iran, is described in some sources as accepting surrogacy when Islamic conditions are met, and in others as opposed to third-party involvement in reproduction altogether[4] which is exactly the kind of divergence that makes individual scholarly consultation more useful than relying on any single source.
Where most Shia scholars who permit the practice agree is on gestational surrogacy specifically, using only the married couple’s own gametes, never the surrogate’s own egg. On lineage, the prevailing Shia view treats the genetic parents as the child’s legal parents, with the surrogate carrying no parental status, though several scholars recommend, as a precaution, that she breastfeed the child after birth, since doing so creates a recognized “milk-mother” relationship that resolves any lingering ambiguity about mahram (marriageable kinship) status. Inheritance follows the same logic: the child inherits from the genetic parents, not the surrogate, unless she is separately named in a will.
Sunni vs. Shia Rulings on Surrogacy
The table below summarizes where the two traditions generally stand, while keeping in mind that scholarly opinion within each tradition is not perfectly uniform.
This kind of Islamic ruling on surrogacy sunni shia comparison surfaces in most academic treatments of the subject[3], though it is worth remembering that “Sunni” and “Shia” each cover a range of schools and individual jurists rather than one voice.
Why Is Surrogacy Considered Haram by Many Scholars?
Even setting the Sunni/Shia divide aside, four recurring concerns explain why surrogacy is haram in the more common conclusion across Islamic scholarship as a whole.
Preservation of Lineage (Nasab)
Some Sunni scholars and jurists who do not accept the use of surrogacy cite passages from the Qur’an which states that the sexual and reproductive life of believers is only permitted within a couple, and the hadith from the Prophet Muhammed (SAW), from Ruwayfi’ ibn Thabit, where a man was told that he must not place his seed within a woman to whom it does not belong (interpreted by scholars as forbidding the insemination of a woman who is not his wife).2] They argue that placing a fertilized embryo into a woman who is not the woman’s husband constitutes the same offense without any sexual activity; the problem they identified remains, the identity of a child’s parent is unknown. This is the most commonly given response as to why surrogacy is haram in Sunni scholarship.
Questions of Motherhood
Another area that complicates jurisprudence in the most challenging way possible involves gestational surrogacy-that is, when one woman carries to term a baby conceived from another woman’s egg. The jurists who champion the genetic mother cite verses describing human generation from a seed, arguing that descent is determined by the genetic origin of human life rather than by the womb that hosted its gestation, thus treating the surrogate more like a nurse than a mother. Still other scholars look at a verse of the Quran describing an individual’s mothers as “they that gave them birth” and thus argue that a birthmother is the legal mother, no matter how the conception occurred [2].
Inheritance and Family Rights
There is a well-defined, fixed set of proportional share interests based on specified family relationships, so the unresolved question of the true legal mother can have real downstream implications for a child’s inheritance, custody, and guardianship. The best way, as one academic has put it, to try and close a gap in the law found in some Arab family codes: Genetic “fingerprinting”… [a] “quick, inexpensive and effective method to attach a child to the correct biological parents whosegametes were responsible for that child’s creation regardless of any particular judge’s decision or scholarly debate about the morality and practice. [1][2].
Marriage Boundaries and Reproductive Ethics
More widely, there are also several scholars who have the broader ethical objection that a woman’s uterus becomes rentable or payable, and with that, the idea of conception and parenthood would become a matter of purchase and sale, a commercialization of the process outside of its natural purpose in marriage [2][5]. The fears of Exploitation of women suffering financial hardship; the issue of the surrogate feeling attached to the child she is bearing, and issues of contract; there has indeed been a notable case in which a paid surrogate in the UK initially refused to give up the baby which she was carrying in 1985. However, these objections have been framed less around the medicine and the process itself than around the fact that market principles are being injected into procreation and the effect it has on family ethics. [2]
Ethical and Legal Issues of Surrogacy in Islamic Law
Even scholars who are open to surrogacy under strict conditions acknowledge a set of practical issues that any Islamic legal framework has to resolve.
The Parentage problem has been identified in the intro: whether or not the genetic mother or the birth mother becomes the mother in legal eyes will drive all of the following issues. Issues of guardianship (wilayah) between the surrogate and the intending parents will occur if there is any difficulty at the time of delivery. Surrogates who do not want to give up the baby following birth do exist. Questions of succession are dependent on a decided question of fact in terms of who the parents are and on what basis it is decided that someone is a parent for this purpose – this cannot be a general intention, as inheritance involves specific people and specific relationship names. [2].
The rights of the surrogate mother are also a relevant issue. Contemporary writings on surrogate motherhood in Islamic law cover many questions related to appropriate compensation ( whether to characterize it as compensation for the risks of medical procedures and care instead of a fee for her body’s utilization), issues regarding informed consent, and the level of medical care she should receive during pregnancy. Among concerns relating to child welfare is the potential emotional harm stemming from potential ownership or “attachment” conflicts between the surrogate and the intended parents, as well as concerns about the commodification of reproduction with likely adverse effects on financially disadvantaged women.[2]
The legislation that has been put in place by many of the Arab countries with legislation on surrogacy, such as Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Bahrain, predominantly bans commercial or gestational surrogacy under civil law. A number of those states impose criminal liability on parties involved in surrogacy arrangements[2]. Iran is unique among Arab/Muslim Majority countries in that civil law is aligned with the religious jurisprudence of the Shia school of law, which allows gestational surrogacy subject to guidelines. It serves as an internal frame of reference for this debate, and we look more closely into the Iranian regulatory model in a guide of its own on surrogacy in Iran.[2][3]
Conclusion
There is no single answer to whether surrogacy is allowed in Islam, and any guide that claims otherwise is oversimplifying a genuinely unsettled area of Islamic law.
The majority Sunni position, backed by several major fiqh councils, treats both traditional and gestational surrogacy as impermissible, primarily on lineage and marital-exclusivity grounds. Shia scholarship is more divided: Ayatollah Khamenei’s 1999 fatwa opened the door to conditional gestational surrogacy in Iran, but other senior Shia authorities have reached different conclusions, and even accounts of where specific scholars stand are not always consistent.
What both traditions agree on is the seriousness of the underlying concerns, nasab, motherhood, inheritance, and the ethical treatment of the surrogate, even when they weigh those concerns differently.For any Muslim couple weighing this path personally, the responsible next step is the same regardless of which school of thought they follow: bringing the specifics of their situation to a qualified scholar or religious authority rather than relying on a general overview like this one.
Free Consulation
FAQ
Is surrogacy allowed in Islam?
The answer to the above question is unclear and not set for all of Islam. Most of the Sunni scholars and the fiqh ( Islamic jurisprudence) councils permit this type of abortion. There are also manyShia scholars, particularly in Iran, who allow such procedure under conditions and on gestational time limits. Thus, it depends on your school of thought and whom to take advice from.
Is surrogacy halal or haram?
For most Sunni jurists, surrogacy is haram because it introduces a third party into a married couple’s reproductive relationship and raises unresolved questions about lineage. Some Shia scholars consider gestational surrogacy permissible when strict conditions are met, including using only the married couple’s own egg and sperm.
Why do many Islamic scholars prohibit surrogacy?
The most commonly cited reasons are concerns about lineage (nasab) and confusion over who counts as the child’s legal mother, the principle that reproduction should remain within marriage, the inheritance and guardianship complications an unresolved parentage question creates, and broader ethical concerns about commercializing pregnancy.
Is surrogacy allowed in Shia Islam?
It can be, depending on the scholar. Ayatollah Khamenei’s 1999 fatwa permits gestational surrogacy using a married couple’s own gametes, and Iran has built a legal framework around that position. Other Shia authorities have expressed differing views, so the answer is not uniform across all Shia scholarship.
What is the Sunni view on surrogacy?
Most Sunni fiqh councils, including the Islamic Fiqh Academy and institutions such as Al-Azhar, consider surrogacy impermissible, whether traditional or gestational. A narrow, largely historical exception discussed in some Hanafi-influenced scholarship, involving a husband’s second wife, has not become a mainstream position.
Does Islam differentiate between traditional and gestational surrogacy?
Yes, and the distinction matters more in Shia jurisprudence than in Sunni jurisprudence. In traditional surrogacy, the surrogate’s own egg is used, making her the biological mother, a form nearly all scholars across both traditions reject. In gestational surrogacy, the embryo comes entirely from the intended parents, which is the form some Shia scholars are willing to permit under specific conditions, while most Sunni scholars still consider it prohibited.
Sources
[1] Islam, S., Nordin, R.B., Shamsuddin, A.R., Mohd Nor, H., & Al-Mahmood, A.K. (2013). Ethics of Surrogacy: A Comparative Study of Western Secular and Islamic Bioethics. Journal of IMA, via PMC. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3708631/
[2] Layaida, H., & Zekagh, O. (2025). Surrogacy in Islamic Jurisprudence and the Laws of the Arab Countries. Journal of Neonatal Surgery, 14(32s). https://www.jneonatalsurg.com/index.php/jns/article/download/9564/8625/31237
[3] Farid, M.S. (2023). Why Islam Has Two Ways of Looking at Surrogacy. 360info. https://360info.org/why-islam-has-two-ways-of-looking-at-surrogacy/
[4] Surrogacy in Islam: What Scholars Actually Say. Delivering Dreams International Surrogacy. https://international-surrogacy.com/blog/surrogacy-and-ivf-in-islam
Note: the surrogate.com URL supplied in the source list was truncated/incomplete and could not be reliably accessed, so it was not used as a citation source in this draft. If you can supply the full URL, it can be added to the Sources list.
