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The Hadith Of The Forties

A hadith related to the prophet peace and prayer be upon him says:

"The creation of each of you in his mother's abdomen assumes a 'nutfa' for forty days, then he becomes 'alaqa' for the same (duration), then a 'mudgha' (like chewn food) for the same, then God sends an angel to it with four instructions. The angel is ordered to write the Sustenance, life-span, deeds and Whether eventually his lot is happiness or misery, then to blow the Spirit into him. "(The two shiekhs after Ibn-Massoud)

Another hadith related to the prophet reads :

"When the 'nutfa' has lasted for forty two days, God sends an angel that shapes it, creates its hearing, vision, skin, flesh and bone, then  asks: my Lord, is it a male or a female".(Muslim after Huzaifa ibn Aseed)

 Both hadiths are considered authentic according to the standards of the science of the hadith. Other versions reported bear Some variation in Wording in both hadiths. There is indeed a view held by some authorities, that both might in fact been the same hadith but reported differently. The mention of the 'Spirit' in the first hadith is taken to signify that the human fetus at the age of one hundred and twenty days assumes a higher status, and this led Some jurists of old time to use that cut-off point to emphasize the gravity of the sm of abortion and estimating the legal punitive measures ensuring upon it.

The spirit, however, is some-thing we human beings cannot grasp or know the meaning of.  It is  a mystery that God kept the truth about to Himself, and we are told by God not to pursue the attempts to unravel its secret.  God says in the Quran addressing the prophet peace be upon him:

"They put questions to you concerning the Spirit. Say the Spirit is at my Lord's command. ..and of knowledge only a meagre part has been imparted to you." (17:85)

The blowing of the spirit is therefore a metaphysical phenomenon beyond human comprehension at all times, and the hadith is taken as a matter of faith. It so happens, however, that the time of pregnancy given for the blowing of the Spirit, coincides with the time the pregnant woman begins to feel the kicks of the fetus inside her uterus; a sensation referred to as quickening of the fetus. Some old jurists therefore fell into the error of considering the blowing of the Spirit to signify also the beginning of life, and since the pregnant woman did not feel quickening before, the fetus must have been therefore 'without life' .Such were the data offered by the knowledge of embryology at their time. In our present day we know that the fetus has been alive from the beginning, but because of its small size, stunted limbs and the abundance of fluid in the amniotic sac around it, the mother could not feel its movements. Only at sixteen or more weeks could the fetus and its limbs grown enough to be able to kick at the inner walls of its mother's womb.

In view of the second hadith, other old scholars set the cut-off time at seven weeks of pregnancy, that is the assumed time of the visit of the angel reported in that hadith, maintaining that it was the time when the fetus shaped up to take a human form. Again our modern knowledge of embryology tells us that the process of shaping up has started a long time before that, and that suitable methods are now at our disposal to ascertain the life of the early fetus, observe its heart beat and various other parameters as well as cytogenetically prove its human nature and various other individual characters including its chromosomal sex even days after the beginning of pregnancy.