At 49 Days After Birth Does the Soul Enter a Baby Life

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Hamza Yusuf

Zaytuna College

Hamza Yusuf is a leading proponent of classical learning in Islam and president of Zaytuna Higher, a Muslim liberal arts higher in Berkeley, California.

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When Does a Human Fetus Become Human being?

Studies of a Fetus in the Womb, a drawing past Leonardo da Vinci, c. 1510 to 1512

Do not sever the bonds of the womb.
– Qur'an four:1

Exercise non kill your children from fear of poverty.
– Qur'an 17:31

On the Mean solar day when the one buried alive volition exist asked for what sin was she killed.
– Qur'an 81:eight–9

Marry and be fruitful, for I will exist proud of the multitudes of my community of believers on the Day of Judgment.
– Prophet Muĥammad ﷺ

To die past other hands more merciless than mine.
No; I who gave them life will give them death.
Oh, now no cowardice, no thought how young they are,
How dear they are, how when they first were built-in;
Not that; I will forget they are my sons
I moment, one short moment—then forever sorrow.
– Euripides' Medea

In English, the term nosotros define ourselves with, human being, emphasizes "being" over doing. Information technology is not our actions that mark united states of america as humans merely our mere being. When, then, do we come up to be? When does that existence we identify as human commencement go homo? The answer is consequential for many reasons, non the least of which is that our nation'southward foundational document states that all human beings are "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights" that include the rights of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." The question of when human being life begins stubbornly remains a key indicate of contention in the debate, now raging for half a century, regarding the ideals of abortion. The Supreme Court made its decision, merely for many, it is far from a settled matter.

Beyond our borders, meanwhile, induced abortion rates are increasing in developing nations, despite declining slightly in developed nations; an estimated i-quarter of all pregnancies worldwide stop in abortion.¹ The debate over ballgame nevertheless rages beyond parts of Europe and remains contentious in N Africa, the Middle East, Asia, also as Primal and S America. While the Catholic Church continues to prioritize ballgame equally an egregious social ill, for many, abortion has become an acceptable pick for dealing with unwanted pregnancies. Increasingly, some Muslims are adding their voices to the conversation—some even supporting legalization in areas where abortion remains illegal.

Given this global trend, it becomes all the more urgent to re-examine the normative view of infanticide and abortion in the Islamic legal tradition, which relies on the Qur'an, prophetic tradition, and scholastic authority for its proofs.

Ballgame derives from the Latin word aboriri,² significant "to perish, disappear, miscarry."^three The verb to abort is both intransitive (pregnant to "miscarry" or "suffer an abortion") and transitive ("to outcome the ballgame of a fetus").⁴ In standard English, we also employ the word to connote the failure of something, as "an aborted mission"—something that ends fruitlessly. Every bit a noun, ballgame ways "the expulsion of a fetus (naturally or esp. by medical induction) from the womb before it is able to survive independently, esp. in the start 28 weeks of a human pregnancy."^five

Historically, civilizations and religious traditions frequently grouped abortion with infanticide—defined as "the killing of an infant shortly after birth" by the Oxford Modern English Lexicon. Indeed, fifty-fifty some modern philosophers link abortion and infanticide by arguing for what they euphemistically term "later on-nativity abortions."⁶ Reviewing the sordid history of infanticide since the Centric Age⁷ and how the different religion traditions inspired a alter in attitudes about both practices helps ready the stage for understanding the Islamic upstanding vision toward ballgame, which depends ultimately, as nosotros'll run into, on the fundamental question of when homo life begins. The Mālikī legal school—or the Way of Medina,⁸ as it was known—offers modern Muslims a definitive response rooted in the soundest Islamic methodology to a seemingly intractable problem vexing our world today.

Infanticide and Abortion in Premodern Civilizations

Arguably, the justifications proffered for infanticide approximate those proposed for abortions, although significant differences remain. A striking aspect of both infanticide and abortion, all the same, is their credible historical universality. Historian Anne-Marie Kilday^nine quotes Michelle Oberman, author of When Mothers Kill: "Infanticide was common among early people, peculiarly insofar as it enabled them to command population growth and to minimize the strain placed on social club past sickly newborns."^x Kilday continues,

In the main, therefore, there have been two contexts for child murder throughout history: first, the killing of what were considered to be "defective" offspring, and, second, the killing of "normal" merely unwanted children. The exposure and/or infanticide of sickly or disabled infants was an accustomed feature of ancient Greco-Roman cultures, as is evident from diverse contemporary literary sources such as Plato, Aristotle, Seneca and Pliny. In the city-state of Sparta, for instance, but children expected to brand good soldiers or good for you citizens were allowed to survive by infancy. In Ancient Egypt, in Cathay, India and throughout the Orient, a similar approach was adopted toward "defective" infants. ¹¹

The ancient Greeks plainly had few qualms nearly infanticide and would leave deformed or unwanted children exposed to the elements to perish. Such a cold human action of exposure was mayhap less heinous, in their minds, than the hot act of forcefully murdering the child; it was a sin of omission that mitigated the savagery of a sin of commission. In Plato's Republic, Socrates, in describing how the guardians volition be raised, tells Glaucon:

Then the children as they are born volition exist taken in charge by the officers appointed for the purpose, whether these are men or women, or both.… The children of expert parents, I suppose, they will put into the rearing pen, handing them over to nurses who will live apart in a particular portion of the city; but the children of inferior parents and all lacking children that are born to the others they will put out of sight in secrecy and mystery, equally is befitting. ¹²

In The Politics, Aristotle echoed a like sentiment:

As to the exposure and rearing of children, let there be a police force that no deformed child shall alive, merely where in that location are as well many (for in our state population has a limit), when couples have children in excess, and the land of feeling is averse to the exposure of offspring, let abortion be procured before sense and life have begun; what may or may not be lawfully done in these cases depends on the question of life and sensation. ^xiii

Classics scholar Jerry Toner, using a fictitious Roman nobleman speaking of the "occupational risk" of getting slave girls meaning, writes:

I like to care for these offspring with greater indulgence than I would normal slaves, and requite them slightly better rations and easier work…. Obviously I cannot be expected to treat all my illegitimate offspring in such a way. So if when born they wait sickly, or if I already have plenty in my household, I order the mothers to expose the infants by leaving them at the dump. ¹⁴

Merciless as those views may seem, the "right" to kill one'southward children can be found in Rome'due south earliest recorded law code, the Police of the Twelve Tables (Leges Duodecim Tabularum). Tabular array 6 legislated "that terribly deformed children shall exist killed quickly." Roman law also permitted a father to kill any newborn female person.^xv Amongst Stoic philosophers of Rome were those who did not consider a fetus man, thereby legitimizing abortion as an adequate personal pick. It was only Christianity'due south powerful influence inside Roman society that would somewhen radically alter these views.^sixteen

As the religious traditions of the Centric Historic period penetrated large regions of the earth, they condemned infanticide as an affront to the sanctity of life. Abrahamic religious sentiment—and religious sentiment solitary—shifted the attitudes of big numbers of peoples and inspired laws to prohibit infanticide and abortion. Child sacrifice, for case, was thought to appease Molech, the god of the Ammonites, making infanticide a common practice in Phoenicia and other surrounding countries. But Leviticus eighteen:21 commands the Israelites, "Exercise non give whatever of your children to be sacrificed to Molech."¹⁷ Due to the enormity of child sacrifice, the Mosaic constabulary prescribed stoning as a suitable penalisation.¹⁸

Genesis 9:6 further states, "Whoever sheds the blood of human being, past homo shall his blood be shed; for in the paradigm of God has God made man."¹⁹ An alternating reading of this text renders "whoever sheds the blood of man in man," which some rabbis argued referred to a fetus. For instance, Tractate Sanhedrin of the Babylonian Talmud offers a rabbinical opinion concerning abortion:

In the name of Rabbi Yishmael²⁰ they said: "[A Noahide receives death penalty] fifty-fifty for [destroying] a fetus." What is the reason of Rabbi Yishmael? It is the verse "he who sheds the blood of man in man (adam bādam) shall his claret be shed" (Genesis 9:half-dozen). What is the meaning of "man in human?" This can be said to refer to a fetus in its mother's womb. ²¹

Josephus,²² a get-go-century Jewish historian, wrote, "The police force orders all the offspring to exist brought up, and forbids women either to cause abortion or to make away with the fetus."²³ Jewish rabbinical tradition prohibits abortion unless the pregnancy threatens the mother's life. Undeniably, Judaism'due south strong opinion against both infanticide and ballgame informed early on Christianity and the doctrine of the Church that emerged. An early Christian handbook for Church doctrine, the Didache (c. 85–110), states, "Thou shalt non murder a child by abortion nor kill them when built-in."²⁴ Some biblical scholars have even argued that the absence of abortion from the New Testament tin exist explained by its inconceivability to early on Christians. In fact, according to C. Ben Mitchell,

Early Christians did non just condemn ballgame and infanticide; Christian communities were at the forefront of providing alternatives, including adopting children who were destined to be abandoned by their parents. Callistus (died c. 223) provided refuge to abased children by placing them in Christian homes. Benignus of Dijon (third century) offered nourishment and protection to abandoned children, including some with disabilities acquired past failed abortions. ²⁵

Strong prohibitions confronting infanticide and abortion also exist in Hindu and Buddhist literature. Bharat, despite Hinduism's condemnation of abortion, currently suffers from an epidemic of female person feticide and even infanticide.²⁶ Buddhism, much to the chagrin of Western pro-choice advocates who view the faith as meshing with a progressive ethos, conspicuously condemns abortion in its earliest scriptures. The Dhammapada, an early drove of sayings of the Buddha, states, "Considering others every bit yourself, do not kill or promote killing. Whoever hurts living beings ... will not achieve felicity after decease."²⁷ Professor of organized religion and Zen teacher David R. Loy writes,

Abortion [in Buddhist tradition] is killing. According to the Pali Canon, the Buddha said that it breaks the first precept to avoid killing or harming any sentient beingness. Any monastic who encourages a woman to accept an ballgame has committed a serious law-breaking that requires expiation.... This accented dominion in early Buddhism is a source of discomfort and embarrassment to many Western Buddhists, and is often ignored by those who are aware of it. ²⁸

Concerning the sanctity of life, including the sanctity of life within the womb, tomes from the earth'southward religious traditions could exist written, merely it remains safe to say that the normative premodern traditions of the world'south religions have universally condemned abortion and infanticide. Islam, the terminal of the Abrahamic faiths, is no exception, for its primary source, the Qur'an, presents its teachings as an extension of previous dispensations.

Arnolfini Portrait, Jan van Eyck, 1434

The Qur'anic Ban on Infanticide

The corking prophets of Judaism and Christianity find constant mention as early messengers in the Qur'an, and God reminds the Prophet Muĥammad ﷺ, "Say, 'I am not an innovator amidst the messengers'" (Qur'an 46:9). Pre-Islamic Arabs of the Arabian Peninsula proficient infanticide only employed a different, if no less brutal, method than the Greco-Roman culture'due south practice of death-by-exposure: the Arabs cached their children alive. They did information technology normally as a class of birth command, for reasons of poverty, or else out of shame at the nascency of a daughter. (The killing of male infants, driven by the scarcity of sustenance in the arid desert climate, was less common, though still practiced.) Commenting on the Qur'anic verse "Do not impale your children from poverty" (6:151), Imam al-Qurţubī²⁹ (d. 671/1273) states, "Among [the Arabs] were those who also killed both their female and male person children for fright of poverty."³⁰

Several verses in the Qur'an prohibit infanticide. The sixth chapter states, "And thus their [belief in] false gods fabricated the killing of their children appear skilful and led them to destruction while confusing them nearly truthful faith. If God willed, they would not have done that; so leave them and their lies" (6:137). Shortly after those verses, the Qur'an lays out what are considered by Muslim scholars to be the first principles of Abrahamic morality:

Say: Come up, I will recite to yous what your Lord has forbidden you. You should not associate annihilation with Him; and be practiced to your parents, and do not impale your children on account of poverty—We provide for yous and for them—and do not approach sexual indecencies, open or secret, and exercise not kill the soul—which God has fabricated sacred. (6:151)

Another verse addresses this topic with the subtle dash of fear of poverty equally opposed to the previous verse, which prohibits killing the child on account of poverty—in other words, an bodily impoverished state. The pronouns in the to a higher place verse (for you and for them) emphasize that God provides for the parents beginning and then the children in the instance of actual poverty to alleviate their fears. In the post-obit verse, the pronouns are reversed (them and you), for the parents are afraid the addition of new children will reduce them to poverty despite their current well-being: "And do not kill your children out of fear of poverty—We provide for them and you lot. Indeed, killing them is an enormous sin. And practise not approach fornication: surely information technology is an obscenity and leads to an evil end. And kill not the soul which God has forbidden, except for just cause" (17:31–33). Commenting on this verse, Qāđī Abū Bakr³¹ (d. 543/1148) relates a hadith where the Prophet ﷺ said killing a child from fearfulness of poverty was the 2nd gravest sin next to setting upwards "partners with God." And then Abū Bakr mentions that infanticide "is the greatest of sins considering it is an assault on the entire species," and also because it "involves men taking on the qualities of predatory beasts."³²

Similarly, some other poetry besides prohibits infanticide and pairs it with censure of sexual deviance: "O Prophet, when assertive women come to you lot to pledge fidelity to you that they will not associate anything with God, and volition not steal, nor commit adultery, nor impale their children, nor bring a calumny which they have forged of themselves, nor disobey what is adept, then take their pledge and ask God to pardon them, for surely God is most forgiving, most merciful" (60:12).

Regarding the practise of killing female infants, the Qur'an states, "And when news of the nascence of a daughter is given to ane of them, his face up darkens, and he grieves within. He hides himself from the people out of distress at the news he'southward given. Shall he continue it, in spite of discredit, or shall he coffin it (alive) in the dust? Oh, what an evil decision they make!" (16:58–59).

The Qur'an thus unequivocally prohibits infanticide; scholars, by consensus, hold this position based upon the Qur'an, the prophetic tradition, and the consensus of the companions. In the history of Islam, at that place has never been debate about this effect.

So what of abortion in Islam? In order to address that question, information technology will aid to examine the surprisingly numerous verses in the Qur'anic discourse on embryology and the accompanying traditions attributed to the Prophet ﷺ.

The Birth of Humans in the Qur'an and Hadith

Ibn ¢Abbās³³ (d. 67/687), the Prophet's companion and cousin, stated that the passage of time will continue to explicate the Qur'an. We can capeesh the wisdom of that statement when we consider the Qur'anic verses and hadith that relate to how and when human life begins, especially in light of what today'southward science has discovered about the procedure of birth. Scripture and scientific discipline, taken together, tin can lead believers to rethink our agreement of when life begins, of the miracle of revelation, and most certainly of ballgame.

Unfortunately, commentaries on such Qur'anic verses and hadith contain many mistakes due to the difficulty in agreement the premodern, nontechnical terms used and the reality that the commentators of yore merely lacked the sound knowledge of embryology that we now possess through scientific discovery.

More a Clot

Arabic words are notoriously difficult to translate due to the nuances involved in the root system of Standard arabic that cannot be replicated in other languages. In the get-go verses revealed to the Prophet Muĥammad ﷺ, the Qur'an declares, "Read, in the name of your Lord, who created: created man from an ¢alaq" (96:ane–two). The word ¢alaq was traditionally understood as simply a "blood clot." The root ¢aliqa, notwithstanding, means "to get pregnant"; according to Ibn Manżūr'south³⁴ (d. 711/1311) Lisān al-¢Arab, an authoritative Standard arabic dictionary, ¢alaq also means "the desire of spouses for one another," due to its root meaning "to cling to."³⁵ Other meanings are "anything attached to something, something that imbeds itself into another, such as a mountain or world, claret of any type, or a portion of it, the cord of a saucepan, any cord that holds something, a leech, a clot."³⁶ The almost appropriate connotation is "something that imbeds itself into something else," equally in the imbedding of an embryo, or blastocyst, into the woman's uterine wall. Another possible meaning is a clot, equally in "a small compact group of individuals," given the blastocyst is a collection of apace dividing individual cells. The classical understanding and subsequent translation of ¢alaq as "blood clot" is just incorrect, though understandable given that a miscarriage often reveals congealed lumps that appear to be claret clots from the prematurely formed fetus.

Also, regarding the creation of human beings, the Qur'an clearly states, in many verses, that nosotros originate from the earth: "God has caused you to abound as a growth from the earth, and afterwards, He will make you render there. He will bring you forth again anew" (xx:55). "God created y'all from the world" (53:32). "God created y'all from clay" (32:vii). "We began the creation of the human being being (insān) from clay" (37:xi). Another poesy states that man was created from water: "He is the One who created from water man and established bonds of kinship and marriage" (25:54). These verses, according to exegetes, refer to the creation of Adam, peace be upon him, from earth and water, only they every bit apply to all men, as world and water are the sole components of our physical being.

Interestingly, the Qur'an also states that homo was created from a nuţfah: "God fashioned man from a nuţfah" (xvi:4). Again, we are confronted with the problem of translation. The meanings of nuţfah are "a minute quantity of fluid," "a drop," "a tiny drop left in a container," "a flowing drop," "drop of sperm," "female driblet [ovum]."³⁷ What is striking about these Qur'anic verses is the accuracy with which they depict what we now know to be the male spermatozoon and the female ovum, both of which are shaped similar a drop of water. The male reproductive jail cell, the spermatozoon, represents one of billions in the overall sperm ejected into a woman's womb. These tiny spermatozoa, each containing a unique genetic code, race to reach the released ovum, which besides contains a unique code, but just a few consummate the journeying, and merely one or two really penetrate the female'south ovum. The hadiths regarding this reproductive process reveal strikingly accurate details that premodern commentators misinterpreted due to their lack of the scientific cognition necessary to understand them properly.

For instance, co-ordinate to one hadith, a Jewish man came to the Prophet ﷺ and asked a question that, co-ordinate to him, merely a prophet could answer: "From what is a man created?" The Prophet ﷺ replied, "It's determined past both [the male person and the female], from the nuţfah of the man and from the nuţfah of a woman."³⁸

In a different narration of the same hadith, the man asked what determines the sexual activity. He was told, "A human'southward fluid is coarse white, and a woman'south is translucent yellowish (aśfar raqīq). When they meet, if a male person sperm (maniyy) (y chromosome) is dominant (¢alā), so it is a male child. But if the female sperm (maniyy) (x chromosome) is ascendant, so information technology is a girl." The Prophet ﷺ clearly distinguishes between the ovum (female nuţfah) and the spermatozoon (male person nuţfah) and the sperm (maniyy), which he described every bit existence both male and female (x and y chromosomes that a human receives from his mother and father).

Translucent yellow human ovum emerging from ovary; image: Jacques Donnez

An astonishing part of this hadith is the description of the adult female's contribution to conception: aśfar raqīq, a precise translation of which is "translucent yellow." Just recently has technology enabled united states of america to actually photograph, in colour, the release of an ovum from the ovaries; as it emerges, it is clearly a tiny egg in the shape of a drop, and its color, due to the cumulus oocyte complex that surrounds the ovum, is described in the literature as "translucent yellow." In short, the nuţfah in the Qur'anic verses and the above hadith refers to both the male "drib" of sperm and the female "drop" of the ovum, described elsewhere in the Qur'an and the hadith³⁹ as the woman's "h2o" and the homo's "water," both relatively accurate terms, given that more than than seventy-5 percentage of the material is water.

What Begins Life?

Some other meaning of nuţfah in modern technical terminology is "zygote" and the subsequent embryological stages during the kickoff nine days. A zygote is formed by a fertilization of two gametes, male and female, before cleavage occurs. On the tenth mean solar day, embryogenesis results, and the ¢alaq phase begins in which the newly formed life imbeds (ta¢allaq) in the uterine wall. The proof that nuţfah as well means zygote and embryo is in chapter seventy-six of the Qur'an, accordingly entitled "The Human" (al-Insān). The first two verses land, "Hasn't at that place been a time when man was nothing worth mention, for Nosotros made homo from a mixed driblet" (76:1–2).

Dna Double Helix, National Man Genome Enquiry Plant

The words "mixed drib" are a translation of nuţfah amshāj, an Arabic phrase that acquired much confusion amidst commentators because the noun nuţfah is in singular form while amshāj, its adjective, is plural; in Arabic grammer, the adjective, in a case like this, should agree with the noun in number. Al-Zamakhsharī ^twoscore(d. 538/1144), in his attempt to solve this vexing grammatical dilemma, goes as far as saying amshāj is singular despite its clear plural form. It could also be an appositive of nuţfah. The signal, however, is the 2 nuţfahs of the male and the female (i.e., the spermatozoon and ovum) go one nuţfah mixed (amshāj) with the genetic material of the ii parents. Setting bated whether it is an adjective or an appositive, the give-and-take amshāj, according to Lisān al-¢Arab, can mean "the mixing of 2 colors" and "the mixing of a homo's water (spermatozoon) and a woman's water (ovum), then it goes from stage to stage."⁴¹ In modern Standard arabic, mashīj, the singular of amshāj, is "gamete."⁴² This appears to be an splendid description, given that each human cell contains twenty-three pairs of chromosomes, and each chromosome is formed by the joining of ii nucleotides, which make upward the strand of DNA. Scientists have colour-coded the strands of nucleotides to better visualize the DNA. The model of "joining of ii colors" in each strand is at present universally used in teaching almost the genetic lawmaking of life.

In a well-known hadith narrated by Ibn Mas¢ūd⁴³ (d. 32/653), the Prophet ﷺ begins describing the process of homo creation by saying, "Verily, the creation of one of you is brought together in the mother's womb for xl days."⁴⁴ Commenting on this hadith, Mullah ¢Alī al-Qārī⁴⁵ (d. 1014/1605) states, "The material of his creation (māddat khalqihi) is gathered and then protected."⁴⁶ He then explains the meaning of the "gathering" (jam¢) using a tradition from Imam al-Ţabarī⁴⁷(d. 310/923) and Ibn Mandah⁴⁸ (d. 395/1005), in which the Prophet ﷺ was reported to have said,

If God desires to create a retainer, He does so through the man having intercourse with the woman in which his "water" penetrates every root and part of her ["water"](¢irq wa ¢uđw), and on the seventh day, He gathers it, so produces [a new life] from every "genetic disposition" (¢irq) back to Adam. [And then the Prophet ﷺ recited the verse,] "In whatever grade He wishes to gather you from various components (rakkabak)." (82:8) ⁴⁹

The word the Qur'an uses for assemble (rakkaba) means "to get together from various parts" or "put together," "to make, prepare out of several components or ingredients."⁵⁰ Mullah ¢Alī and then says, "This pregnant is confirmed by the Prophet's words when a light-skinned Arab woman gave birth to a black male child and her husband accused her of infidelity. The Prophet ﷺ said, 'Perchance it is from a distant root (naz¢ahu ¢irq).'"⁵¹ Today nosotros would telephone call this a recessive gene. The hadith implies the vast genetic variations that happen with each individual spermatozoon and ovum. Each contains a unique combination (tarkībah) that volition provide an entirely new individual never earlier existent.

Rethinking the Stage of Ensoulment

At what stage during the creation of the human being does ensoulment occur? Clearly, the Qur'an describes each stage of growth within the womb as i we passed through every bit a human being beingness: "Surely We created the man being from a quintessence of clay, and then We made him [man] a fertilized egg (nuţfah) in a safe place, and then We fabricated him [human being] a clot, and so Nosotros made the clot an embryo, and then We made the embryo bones and clothed the basic in mankind, and and so We originated another creation" (23:12–14). Commenting on this verse, the eminent Malaysian scholar and metaphysician Syed Naquib al-Attas writes,

From the fusion of the ii gametes God created (khalaqa) a new private organism; and from this organism He created (khalaqa) an embryo; and from the embryo He created (khalaqa) a foetus. Thus nosotros see from this that the whole procedure in the various stages of the emergence of the animal existence into definite shape and structure complete with organs is non something natural; i.e. it is not something due to the workings of nature, merely that at every stage information technology is God's act of cosmos setting the created thing in conformity with its constitution in the womb (i.e. its fiţrah). Then from this terminal foetal stage, God originated (ansha'a) another creature. This refers to the introduction of the spirit (al-rūĥ) that God breathed into the animal being after He had fashioned it in due proportion. ⁵²

I of the derivations of the word originate (ansha'a) in Arabic means "to elevate." It is the introduction of the immaterial aeviternal soul that elevates the new cosmos to a spiritual human beingness that exists as body and soul. The partially quoted aforementioned hadith of Ibn Mas¢ūd says, "Verily, the creation of one of y'all is brought together in the mother's womb for 40 days in the course of a drop (nuţfah), then he becomes a jell (¢alaqah) for a like period, then a lump for a like period, then there is sent an angel who blows the soul into him."⁵³ Based on this hadith, the majority of scholars in the past claimed ensoulment was on the 120th day afterwards conception.

A second interpretation argued that the words "a like period" (mithla dhālik) refer dorsum to the first forty, and thus all the stages occur during a twoscore-twenty-four hour period catamenia. Another hadith in Imam Muslim'south⁵⁴ (d. 261/875) collection (Śaĥīĥ Muslim) clarifies the ambiguity of the number of days in the above hadith by maxim the angel comes at six weeks.* Scholars have been in understanding that the ensoulment occurs immediately after the "lump" phase, when the fetus takes on a course: modernistic science has confirmed this occurs around half-dozen weeks; the hadith related by both Muslim and Abū Dāwūd⁵⁵ (d. 275/889) concurs with modern science.

The argument that ensoulment occurs soon subsequently 40 days ultimately proves far stronger than the traditional bulk view that it occurs after 120 days, given what we know of embryogenesis today. The ground for 120 days, if taken from the hadith in its standard interpretation, would mean that the hadith contradicts today's medical views that are based upon unshakeable biological testify. The well-known criterion amid hadith scholars is that a hadith cannot contradict something known by reason with proofs beyond reasonable doubt. Thus, should a hadith contradict agreed-upon factual knowledge, scholars either refuse it or, if possible, reinterpret information technology if the linguistic communication allows for other possibilities, every bit can exist washed in this example. Equally mentioned before, 1 alternate view amongst early scholars was that the three forty-mean solar day periods are not consequential just concurrent; the three stages occur in the same twoscore days based upon the ambiguity of the phrase "a similar period." This estimation, which the Arabic allows for, and given the soundness of its concatenation, remains the only acceptable 1.

Does Human Life Begin Before Ensoulment?

In the view of Imam Mālik b. Anas⁵⁶ (d. 179/795) and the Mālikī scholars of the Mode of Medina, a kid (walad) is created at inception, when the exchange of genetic material occurs and the requisites for the formation of a unique man being exist. Were it not so, argue the jurists of this school, the Prophet ﷺ would not have made blood compensation necessary if a person caused a adult female to miscarry.

The hadith related by Ibn Mājah⁵⁷ (d. 273/887) quotes the Prophet ﷺ every bit saying, "A miscarried fetus will fumble about the door of paradise saying, 'I won't enter until my 2 parents enter.'"⁵⁸ Khaţīb al-Tabrīzī⁵⁹ (d. 741/1340) relates a like version: "Surely the miscarried fetus volition dispute with its Lord if its parents end upwardly in Hell, and information technology will be said, 'O miscarried one, bring your parents to paradise.'"⁶⁰ When a woman from the Hudhayl tribe struck another significant woman from her association, causing her to miscarry, the Prophet ﷺ told the woman'south agnates that blood money was owed. When ane of her clan members asked, "Do we compensate for what never ate, nor drank, nor sighed, nor cried; tin can such a one be said to take been killed and died," the Prophet ﷺ replied, "Are these the rhymes of the days of ignorance? Pay the claret money of the child."⁶¹

The Mālikī scholars point out that the Prophet's ruling was not based on the stage of the pregnancy. They argue that the embryo is considered a child fifty-fifty at the earliest stages of pregnancy, and blood money would be owed. Moreover, the Prophet ﷺ called the miscarried fetus "a child" (śabiyy), and then the matter falls under the prohibition of the Qur'anic verses that prohibit killing children. Ibn Abī Zayd al-Qayrawānī⁶² (d. 386/996), an authoritative voice in the Mālikī school and in the Islamic tradition, writes:

Mālik says, "If a significant adult female is struck, causing her to lose her child, whether still in lump phase (muđghah) or even an imbedded embryo (¢alaqah), and nothing is discernible from its creation—neither eye nor finger nor anything else—if the women who know virtually such things determine that it was a child [i.eastward., that she was really pregnant], then financial compensation is owed…." Ibn Shihāb [d. 124/742] said, "Whether the fetus was formed or non [money is owed]. If in that location were twins or triplets, each demands bounty." ⁶³

Imam al-Rajrājī⁶⁴ (d. 633/1236), in his commentary on Imam Mālik's position on abortion, besides concurs, and adds that a fetus at any stage is considered a child.⁶⁵

The term the Qur'an uses for a life within the womb is janīn, which means what is hidden from the eye or concealed; the greater the concealment, the more applicable the name. Thus, a zygote, embryo, blastocyst, and fetus are all chosen janīn in Arabic. Rāghib al-Iśfahānī⁶⁶ (d. 502/1108) defines the janīn every bit "a child (walad) as long every bit it is in the womb of its female parent."⁶⁷ Other Qur'anic verses affirm that God considers all stages of fetal development to be a human life: "Does the human existence think he'll be left for naught? Was he not an embryo from male and female person fluid released?" (75:36–37).⁶⁸ The poesy could have said, "Was he non created from an embryo," but instead it states unambiguously, "Was he not an embryo." Some other verse states, "Surely We created the human being from a quintessence of clay, and then We made him into an embryo in a safety place" (23:12–13). Again, it says conspicuously that "We made him into an embryo." The Qur'anic narrative ineluctably defines our creation at each stage of our individual journeys within our corresponding wombs as a unique human being.

The ensoulment most likely relates to and initiates human being brain activity that will eventually develop into the chapters for human thought, which, co-ordinate to traditional Islamic metaphysics, is immaterial by nature and merely occurs through the vehicle of, but is not synonymous with, the brain—hence, our distinction in English between heed and brain, and in Arabic betwixt ¢aql and dimāgh. Michael Gazzaniga,⁶⁹ a leading researcher in cerebral neuroscience, writes that from the time of fertilization of the human sperm and egg, "the embryo begins its mission: divide and differentiate." Within hours, it develops layers of cells that then become the endoderm, mesoderm, and ectoderm, the layers that will give ascension to every organ in the human body. Within weeks, the neural tube of the embryo spawns the key nervous arrangement, the ventricles of the brain, and the cardinal canal of the spinal cord. By the fourth week, he explains, the neural tube develops bulges that become the major divisions of the brain. He continues, "Even though the fetus is now developing areas that will get specific sections of the brain, non until the end of week 5 and into week half-dozen (ordinarily around 40–43 days) does the first electrical brain activeness begin to occur."^seventy

This description of the evolution of the brain, and the timing of the beginning of brain activeness, stand for quite precisely to the prophetic tradition of ensoulment within six weeks.

Still, the infusion of the soul (nafkh al-rūĥ), its nature, and its exact fourth dimension remain a mystery. In Imam Muslim'south collection, in a chapter entitled "The Jew'due south Question to the Prophet Nigh the Soul (rūĥ)," the Prophet ﷺ was asked by a Jew about the nature of the soul. The Prophet ﷺ was silent, and the narrator said, "I knew something was beingness revealed to him." When the revelation came, the Prophet ﷺ replied from the Qur'an, "They ask y'all about the soul. Say, 'The soul is from the command of my Lord; and you are given simply a lilliputian noesis'" (17:85).⁷¹

The Islamic Consensus on Ballgame

The position of the scholars of the Way of Medina, that the fetus in all its stages is a living kid, continues downwardly to the nowadays day without whatever dissenting voices. Qāđī Abū Bakr b. al-¢Arabī, a formidable Mālikī mujtahid (ane who is capable of independent juridical reasoning, or ijtihād), says in his commentary of Mālik'south Muwaţţa',

Three states exist apropos child-bearing: the state before conception when coitus interruptus is used to prevent pregnancy, and that is permissible; the second state occurs once semen has been received by the womb, at which betoken it is impermissible for anyone to attempt to sever the process of procreation as is done by some of the contemptible merchants who sell abortifacients to servant girls when their periods stop; the tertiary state of affairs is afterwards the formation of the fetus and the ensoulment, and this third state is even more severe than the get-go two in its proscription and prohibition.⁷²

This view is affirmed by other Mālikī scholars, with some small-scale dissensions. For case, Qāđī ¢Iyāđ⁷³ (d. 544/1149) says, "Some opined that the embryo has no sanctity for the first xl days nor the legal stature of a child (walad); others argued that it is not permissible to disrupt conception or crusade an abortion once conception has occurred in any way whatsoever! However, coitus interruptus differs in that it has not reached the womb."⁷⁴ Most Mālikī scholars clearly believed in the sanctity of life from inception onward. Imam al-Khirshī⁷⁵ (d. 1101/1690) says, "It is non permissible for a woman to do annihilation that would lead to an abortion causing the fetus to miscarry, nor is information technology permissible for the husband to do so, even if information technology is earlier 40 days."⁷⁶ Imam Ibn Juzayy al-Kalbī⁷⁷ (d. 741/1340) says, "If the womb receives the sperm, it is not permissible to effort to thwart [conception] or harm it. Fifty-fifty worse involves an attempt once conception occurs, or worse yet later ensoulment, which, by consensus, is murder."⁷⁸ Finally, in the authoritative drove of legal responsa of the Mālikī schoolhouse, Imam al-Wansharīsī⁷⁹ (d. 914/1508) writes, "Our imams have prohibited using any drugs that crusade infertility or that remove semen from the womb; this is the opinion of the masters and experts."⁸⁰ Then, after quoting the statement above from al-Qabas of Qāđī Abū Bakr, he continues,

If you have contemplated the conclusion of what was presented from the master jurist Qāđī Abū Bakr, you should realize without any doubtfulness that an agreement betwixt the married man and the married woman to arrest their child or any effort to do that is absolutely prohibited—forbidden! It is non permitted from any perspective. And if the mother should practice and so, she owes blood money and should exist punished according to the discretion of the approximate…. Along the same lines, ¢Izz b. ¢Abd al-Salām ⁸¹ [d. 660/1262] was asked, "Is it permissible to give a adult female drugs that would prevent pregnancy?" He replied, "It is not permitted for a woman to use medicine that would eliminate her capacity to go pregnant." ⁸²

The references to induced abortion in early on Islam are scarce and mostly occur in books of jurisprudence, in sections on blood compensation (diyah), which examine situations where someone acquired a adult female to lose her child. The permissibility of abortion was inconceivable to early on Muslims even though abortifacients were readily available.

The Persian polymath Avicenna⁸³ (d. 428/1037) records more than forty abortifacients in his magisterial medical compendium al-Shifā'. In the only section dealing with ballgame entitled "On Situations Requiring an Abortion," he writes: "In that location may be a state of affairs in which you need to abort a fetus from the uterus in order to save the mother's life."⁸⁴ He lists 3 conditions where a pregnancy threatens a woman's life and and then lists several ways to induce an abortion in cases where those conditions exist. He gives no other reasons for aborting a fetus.⁸⁵

The sole exception among Mālikī scholars regarding abortions was Imam al-Lakhmī⁸⁶ (d. 478/1085), who permitted abortion of an "embryo" (nuţfah) earlier forty days. Arguably, he would recant his position if he knew what we know today well-nigh fetal development. Nonetheless, his position was never taken up for serious discussion by any Mālikī scholar and remains a mere mention every bit a sole dissenting voice in books of legal responsa.

Far besides often today, the positions favoring the permissibility of abortions in other schools of jurisprudence are presented in manufactures and fatwas without the dash that i finds in the original texts. This results from either disingenuousness or shoddy scholarship. For instance, Imam al-Ramlī⁸⁷ (d. 1004/1596), held in high esteem in the Shāfi¢ī school, is invariably quoted equally permitting abortion, but he clearly qualifies his position. He states, for instance, "If the embryo results from fornication, [abortion's] permissibility could be believable (yutakhayyal) before ensoulment."⁸⁸ He also believed that the stages of nuţfah, ¢alaqah, and muđghah, occurred during the get-go 120 days, but we now know they occur in the first xl days; the question remains whether he would alter his position had he known this. Mistakenly, he also claims that Imam al-Ghazālī, perhaps the most important legal philosopher in the history of Islam, did not categorically prohibit abortion. In The Revival of Religious Sciences, Imam al-Ghazālī⁸⁹ discusses various positions of scholars on nascence control and then states,

It should not be viewed like abortion or infanticide, because that involves a crime against something that already exists, although the artistic process has degrees: the offset degree of existence is the male sperm reaching the female egg in preparation for the beginning of life. To disrupt that is criminal (jināyah). If it becomes a clot or a lump, the crime is even more heinous. And should ensoulment occur and the form completed, the criminal offense is even more enormous; the nigh extreme criminal offence, however, is to kill it once information technology has come out alive. ⁹⁰

Clearly in this passage, Imam al-Ghazālī prohibits abortion, in no uncertain terms, during each stage of fetal development but opined that as the fetus developed inside the womb, the severity of the criminal offence increased by degrees.

Even regarding coitus interruptus, according to a sound tradition from Śaĥīĥ Muslim, the Prophet ﷺ stated, "That is a hidden blazon of infanticide (al-wa'd al-khafiyy)."⁹¹ Scholars translate that to hateful it is disliked, but the Prophet'southward strong language concerning nascence command by likening it to a hidden class of infanticide indicates that aborting a fetus would surely be considered infanticide. And this is the position of the jurist Imam Ibn Taymiyyah⁹² (d. 728 AH/1328 CE), who asserts that abortion is prohibited by consensus: "To abort a pregnancy is prohibited (ĥarām) by consensus (ijmā¢) of all the Muslims. It is a type of infanticide well-nigh which God said, 'And when the buried alive is asked for what sin was she killed,' and God says, 'Exercise not kill your children out of fear of poverty.'"⁹³

The overwhelming majority of Muslim scholars have prohibited abortion unless the mother's life is at stake, in which example they all permitted it if the danger was imminent with some deviation of opinion if the threat to the mother's life was only probable. A handful of subsequently scholars permitted abortion without that condition; however, each voiced severe reservations. Moreover, none of them achieved the level of independent jurist (mujtahid). To present their opinions on this subject as representative of the normative Islamic ruling on abortion is a articulate misrepresentation of the tradition. Those scholars permitted ballgame only prior to ensoulment, which they thought occurred either within 40 days or 120 days. Further, these opinions were based on misinformation nigh embryology and a failure to understand the nuances of the Qur'anic verses and hadiths relating to embryogenesis. Mod genetics shows that the blueprint for the entire human beingness is fully present at inception, and thus we must conclude once the spermatozoon penetrates the ovum, the miracle of life clearly begins. Ensoulment occurs after the physical or animal life has begun. Given that twenty percent of fertilized eggs spontaneously abort in the first six weeks subsequently inception, the immaterial attribute of the homo, referred to as "ensoulment" (nafkh al-rūĥ), would logically occur after that precarious period for the fertilized egg at effectually forty-2 days; just God knows best.

Abortions, particularly those performed after 40 days of fetal development, too violate a unlike instruction of the Islamic tradition: the prohibition of mutilation. A six-week-onetime fetus clearly has the course of a kid, with budding arms and legs, a head, the start of eyes and ears. Imagery of actual abortions performed is pervasive in its depictions of ripped artillery and legs from the bodies of fetuses. Ibn ¢Abd al-Barr⁹⁴ (d. 463/1071) said, "In that location is no disagreement on the prohibition of mutilation."⁹⁵

The Qur'an states that God created us in stages (71:14). Each of these stages—the zygote, the embryo, the jell of cells, the lump formed and unformed, and finally the growing fetus—is a stage every human being experiences. The Prophet ﷺ said, "God says, 'I derived the womb (raĥim) from My ain Name, the Merciful (al-Raĥmān), and so whoever severs the womb bond, I will sever him from My mercy.'"⁹⁶ What constitutes a greater severance of the womb bail than aborting a fetus bonded to the womb? The act of abortion surely "severs the womb bond," and the womb is a identify the Qur'an calls "a protected space" (23:13), meaning God is its protector. Whatever act of aggression on that sacred space aggresses on a place fabricated sacred by the Creator of life itself.

The Arabic word for "womb" (raĥim) has an etymological relation to the discussion for "sanctity" (ĥurmah) in what Arabic linguists call "the greater derivation." The womb has a divine sanctity. God created it as the sacred space where the greatest creative act of the divine occurs: the creation of a sentient and sapiential being with the potential to know the divine. The miraculous inevitability of a fertilized egg occurs only by the providential care of its Creator. Each forebear—from the ii parents to their four grandparents to their eight, exponentially back to a point where they eventually capsize back to only two people—had to survive wars, famines, babyhood sicknesses, natural disasters, accidents, and every other obstacle to the phenomenon that stands equally the myriad number of people alive today. We are each a part of an unbroken chain back to the kickoff parents.

Extreme poverty and the desire for independence from children in a earth that has devalued motherhood through intense individualistic social pressures related to meritocracy, psychology, and even the misuse of praiseworthy gender egalitarianism are the primary reasons people in the West today cull abortions. No uncertainty, many women are genuinely challenged and feel inadequate and unprepared as mothers. The largest demographic amongst the poor in America remains single mothers. Abortions motivated by knowing, through the phenomenon of ultrasound applied science, that the offspring will exist female, as is the case in Prc and Bharat, tin can be seen as an "advanced" form of the infanticide that was practiced in ancient times later birth. Arguably, if the pre-Islamic Arabs had possessed ultrasound and modern methods of abortion, they would not have waited for the female child to come to term; rather, they would accept aborted the infant in the early stages of pregnancy. Genetic testing can likewise now predict (not always reliably) any number of serious disabilities a child may be built-in with. Absent any religious injunctions on the sanctity of life, abortion is arguably a "valid" way of dealing with unwanted pregnancies and overpopulation, not to mention the promotion of eugenics.

When the angels inquired every bit to why God would place in the earth "those who shed blood and sow corruption," God replied, "I know what you do non" (Qur'an two:30). God knew there would be righteous people who would refuse to shed blood. Abortions are noted for the blood that flows during and subsequently them. For anyone who believes in a merciful Creator who created the man being with purpose and providence, ballgame, with rare exception, must be seen for what it is: an set on on a sanctified life, in a sacred space, by a profane hand.

*Due to an editing error, an before version of this sentence stated that this hadith specifically mentions that the angel blows the soul into the fetus. While the hadith does not explicitly state this, it clearly indicates that the period earlier the ensoulment is 40 days.

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Source: https://renovatio.zaytuna.edu/article/when-does-a-human-fetus-become-human

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