| Celibacy Celibacy
means to refrain from lawful sexual relations for religious reasons, i.e., not
to marry for the sake of God’s pleasure. Christian
and Buddhist monks and nuns view celibacy as a religious ideal. By law, all Roman
Catholic priests must remain celibate i.e. they must remain unmarried throughout
their lives.In Eastern Churches, married men can become priests, but bishops must
practice celibacy.
One can ask a
valid question: why the pope, bishops, nuns, who also have the natural sexual
desires like other human beings, are not allowed by the religion to marry ?
If
marriage displeases God, then why has He created the whole system of sexual reproduction?
Why
all living creatures including humans have been created by God with special sex
organs to perform the sexual act?
If God does not approve of sexual relations
for men and women, then why the basic process by which God has created more and
more humans entirely depends on sexual relationship. The reproductive systems
of males and females in humans and in other kinds of living species have been
specially designed by God to produce, nourish, and develop their respective offspring.
If the ideology of celibacy were to
be an ideal example to be followed by mankind as a manifestation of their devotion
towards God, then it would seriously repress the Divine Scheme of creation.
If
all the adherents of Christianity follow the lifestyle of Pope, who must be regarded
by his followers as the most ideal person, then the whole Christian world would
be wiped out within one generation. Also, all Christians recognize Hazrat Ibrahim
(as), Hazrat Musa (as) and many other prophets as messengers of God. All these
prophets had wives and children.Thus, this religious practice of Christianity
and Buddhism brings a direct collision with God’s plan and His mechanism
of pro-creation. This is an antithesis of Divine Religion. Islam not only allows
the marriage institution but puts special emphasis on it. The
Holy Quran says; 
“Marry
women of your choice”. (4:3) The
Holy Prophet (sws) has shown disapproval of remaining unmarried or delaying marriage
unnecessarily. The Prophet has said :
“Marriage
is my sunnat whosoever diverts from my sunnat is not of me.” There
are many other hadith of the Holy Prophet (sws) and Imams to this effect.
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