The killing of a child and abortion in the Quran as a practice of Jahiliyya

The right to life granted by Allah to people is precious and respectable. Islam places great importance on this right and has introduced criminal sanctions against unjust attacks on it. Our religion, which considers unjustly taking a life as a crime against all humanity, has ensured complete respect for the individual's right to life. However, numerous unjust murders have occurred since the beginning of humanity. These murders have not only occurred among adults, but also innocent and defenseless children have been subjected to murder. A period when children were subjected to such unjust acts is the Age of Jahiliyya, the period just before the emergence of Islam. It is a known historical fact that in the Age of Jahiliyya, newborn children were often killed by being buried alive by their parents. This fact is mentioned in Qur'anic verses, hadiths, and works related to Arab culture and history. Today, people cannot comprehend the killing of an innocent baby immediately after birth and define this act as complete barbarism. It is said that no conscience today can accept such barbarity. Those who strive to understand the event argue that it can be understood if considered independently of today's values. However, it is forgotten that similar situations and concerns that drove people of that era to commit this act still exist today. This is precisely what some contemporary tafsir writings draw attention to, pointing out that the modern equivalent of this issue is abortion. Abortion, practiced worldwide not only in certain cultures, is compared to the infanticide custom of the Age of Jahiliyya in terms of killing innocent children for similar reasons and concerns. Based on these statements, our thesis investigates whether abortion, practiced globally rather than in a specific culture, mirrors the practice of child killing in the Age of Jahiliyyah in terms of similar reasons and concerns. Our study aims to analyze the interpretations of Quranic verses related to child killing by both classical and contemporary exegetes, focusing on the concepts within these verses, the prohibited actions described, and the contemporary manifestations of these actions. Ultimately, we conclude that abortion, when performed outside the boundaries permitted by Islamic law, perpetuates the practice of child killing in today's context, driven by reasons and concerns like those cited during the Jahiliyyah period.