Short answer
Yes. Donating sperm or eggs, and using donor sperm, eggs or embryos, is haram in the Hanafi school and according to contemporary scholars of all four schools. It places a stranger's reproductive material inside someone else's marriage, confuses lineage and harms the rights of the child.
Haram. Conceiving a child from anyone's sperm or egg other than the husband's and wife's is close in meaning to zina, mixes lineage (nasab) and breaks the rights of the child, so both donating and receiving are forbidden.
The four schools agree on this.
Explanation
Protecting lineage is one of the core aims of the Shariah. Allah praises those who guard their private parts except with their spouses, and the Prophet ﷺ said it is not lawful for a believer to pour his water on another man's crop. Scholars apply this directly to donor conception: a child should come only from a husband and wife who are married to each other.
Donation can look like simple kindness, but it creates real harm:
- the donor has a biological child whom he or she will never raise or know
- the child is cut off from knowing a parent, and half-siblings may one day marry without knowing it
- rules of inheritance, mahram and maintenance become confused
- clinics usually pay donors, and parts of the human body are not for sale in Islam
This is not zina in the technical sense, since there is no intercourse and no hadd punishment, but it is still a serious sin. The four schools have no classical text on it, and contemporary scholars from all of them, including the OIC Islamic Fiqh Academy, agree it is forbidden.
If a child has already been born this way, the child carries no sin and has full dignity. Questions of lineage, mahram and inheritance in that case should be taken to a mufti. For couples facing infertility, IVF with their own sperm and eggs is allowed (see is IVF haram), and caring for an orphan or a child in need through kafalah (fostering) is a great reward.
The evidence
Quran, Surah Al-Muminoon 23:5-6
وَٱلَّذِينَ هُمْ لِفُرُوجِهِمْ حَٰفِظُونَ ﴿٥﴾ إِلَّا عَلَىٰٓ أَزْوَٰجِهِمْ أَوْ مَا مَلَكَتْ أَيْمَٰنُهُمْ فَإِنَّهُمْ غَيْرُ مَلُومِينَ ﴿٦﴾
And they who guard their private parts Except from their wives or those their right hands possess, for indeed, they will not be blamed -
Sexual and reproductive relations are limited to marriage.
Sunan Abi Dawud 2158
Graded hasan... لا يحل لامرئ يؤمن بالله واليوم الآخر أن يسقي ماءه زرع غيره ...
"It is not lawful for a man who believes in Allah and the Last Day to water another man's crop with his own water."
A man's sperm may not be placed in a woman who is not his wife, which applies to donor conception.
Sahih al-Bukhari 6749
Sahih... الولد للفراش وللعاهر الحجر ...
"The child belongs to the marriage bed, and for the fornicator there is the stone."
Lineage is tied to a valid marriage, which donor conception confuses.
Where the ruling is recorded
- Resolutions of the Islamic Fiqh Academy (OIC), Resolution on test-tube babies. Any method that involves a third party's sperm, egg or womb is forbidden.
- Jadid Fiqhi Masa'il (Khalid Saifullah Rahmani), Chapter on test-tube babies. Donor sperm and eggs are not permissible.
This answer is pending review by the scholars on our team. Quran translation by Sahih International. Hadith Arabic from the standard editions of the six books and the Muwatta, with gradings as recorded there; the English is our own rendering. Spotted a mistake? Tell us.