Yasir Qadhi – How Do We Understand the Hadith on the Gender of a Baby? – Ask Shaykh YQ #224

			We have brother Muammar from Moscow, Moscow, Russia, emailing, saying that he has there's a hadith
that he's come across that he doesn't understand. And he's asking, how do we understand this hadith
is a very troubling Hadith for him. He says that the Hadith in Sahih Bukhari Sahih Muslim it states
that the gender of the baby is decided based upon whether the man discharges first or the woman that
according to what he says that the Heidi says that if the man discharges first it will be a boy. And
if the woman discharges first it will be a girl. And he says, How can we understand this Hadeeth in
light of our modern knowledge of genetics 107
		

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			Well, first and foremost, brother Muhammad, it is heartwarming to know that people in Russia are
Mashallah watching the show. Actually, many of our viewers are not aware. But there is a large
concentration of Muslims in Russia. And the history of Islam in Russia goes back many, many
centuries. The guitars are of course the largest ethnicity within the Russian mainland, and perhaps
up to maybe even 10% of the Russian population is Muslim. Compare this to America 1% is Muslim in
America, Russia, at least seven maybe even 10 maybe even more percent is Muslim and I have never
been but I have heard that every city has massages and halal restaurants and you find Muslims in
		

			every major city in Russia. So I'm happy to know that people are watching of course the language
barrier is difficult there because most of the people there do not speak English but brother one but
apparently does. So he's watching our show. So hamdulillah Nice to have you listening in. Now he
asks a very, very specific question. And he references a hadith. I'll narrate the whole Hadith it is
a hadith narrated by a Muslim, from filburn, the freed slave of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa
sallam that he says that I was standing in front of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam, when a
Jewish rabbi came and said a salam alayka er Mohammed, peace be unto Yama hammer. So said, I'm so so
		

			bad said that. I put my hand on his chest and said to him, say Rasulullah, not Muhammad Sallallahu I
said them. And the rabbi says, I am only calling him by the name his father called him meaning. I
mean, that's his name. I don't consider him to be Rasulullah. And so the Prophet sallallahu alayhi
wa sallam said, Yes, he's right. That is the name. My father named me. In other words, so van got
irritated that you should not address him by his name. And that's true for the Muslims. We don't
address him in his lifetime or after his death directly. Yeah, Mohammed says, No, no, we say Jada
sued a lot. But the rabbi is not a Muslim. And so the rabbi says, I'm gonna call him by the name his
		

			father gave him and the Prophet system said that he is right. My father did call me this name. And
so he has the right to call me this name. And so the rabbi said, I want to ask you some questions.
The prophet SAW said, I'm said, Is there any benefit in me answering Are you really going to
benefit? And the rabbi says that I'm gonna listen, I'm not guaranteeing anything. I'm gonna listen.
And this shows you by the way, the process of ziani frankness, like look, is there any fire than me
talking to you? Are you really interested in Islam? Or you just want to, you know, test or play
games or whatever. And so the rabbi says, No, I'm gonna listen, let's see what you have to say. So
		

			it's a long Hadith he asks a series of questions. One of the questions he asks, so for example, he
says, What is the first food of the people of Jenna so the profitsystem said, The deliver of a whale
This is a well known Hadith I talked about this when I talked about the Hadith of the, the science
of the day of judgment and also the concept of judgment of the concept of heaven and * and the
realities of, of heaven in the Quran and Sunnah. So, he then asks him that I'm going to ask you now
a question that where does the the child come from? Okay. The Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam
said, that, the water of the man is whitish in color and the water of the woman or the fluid of the
		

			woman is yellowish in color. So once they come together, then if the money or if the sperm of the
man overcomes that, the the fluid of the lady, then that fluid becomes male by the permission of
Allah. And if the fluid of the lady overcomes that of demand, then that fluid becomes female by the
permission of Allah subhanahu wa Tada. And then the Jewish person goes on as other questions and
then the professors and finishes when he leaves, he says to
		

			So when he asked me all of these questions, and I did not know any of these answers, until a large
soldier told me their answers and answered him on the spot now, this head isn't Sahih Muslim. And it
seems to suggest that the gender of the child is something that both fluids are responsible for. And
in one version if the man discharges first and in this version if the man's fluid overcomes that of
the woman of the ones for the overcomes that of the man. And of course, we now know that the baby's
gender is determined at the moment of conception by the male sperm, that's the female egg simply has
the x * chromosome, and then the male sperm has either the X or the y. And so if the sperm that
		

			fertilizes the egg has an X chromosome, then you get x x, and that is the girl. And if it has a Y
chromosome, then it is x, y, and that is a boy. And so modern genetics, modern biology now knows for
a fact this is Emily of pain, that the woman plays no role Absolutely. In determining the gender.
The woman's egg plays no role whatsoever in determining the gender. So our brother Muammar is
emailing and he is saying that this hadith seems to seems to conflict with what we know of biology.
Now, such a hadith that seem to conflict with facts that we know, these Hadith have become very
common knowledge by many Muslims of our times, because they are used as ammunition by those who wish
		

			to cast doubt on all of the ahaadeeth. And they love to quote these types of traditions that might
seem to conflict with modern science or our knowledge. And then they say that this demonstrates that
the ahaadeeth are not preserved, that we don't know what the prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam
said, and there are many movements and many thinkers across the world in the outlands. In India,
Pakistan, here in the western lungs as well. There's always there's always been a strand within our
oma in the old times, they will call them Morteza and others, there's always been a strand that has
been highly skeptical of the Hadeeth preservation. And of course, yeah, you're asking me, and we
		

			are, I'm assuming all of us are coming from the Sunni paradigm. We are not from that paradigm. The
reason why we're called Sunni 100 sooner is that we believe in the Sunnah. And if we believe in this
sooner than we believe that Hadith overall has preserved the concept of the Sunni, by the way,
Hadith is lifeless. Let's just say for our talk, a hadith is an individual chain with an actual
statement or action of the profits supply, sell them that preserves his turn. So the sooner that's
called it the theory, the sooner is what the profits and some came with Hadeeth is how the sooner is
preserved. We have the books of Hadith, okay, and obviously, sometimes they're interchangeable. You
		

			can also say books of sooner, but for our purposes, right now, let's talk about Hadith and Sunnah.
Now, the point the point is that this Hadith, which is in Sahih, Muslim, seems to suggest something
that contradicts everything we know about genetics and about biology. So what do we do? When this
clash occurs, we have to first and foremost check the authenticity of the Hadith examine his chain,
see if it's an actual authentic hadith or not, a lot of times, some of these people, quote, a hadith
that are not really authentic in the first place. And so we don't have to worry about those. In this
particular case, the Hadees of Philbin actually is authentic. It is in Sahih Muslim as well, and its
		

			chain is it's flawless. It is an authentic chain. And so we would grade the Hadith as being
authentic. However, we now get to the next stage. And this is what the scholars have had these two
and I have to say here, that those trends that try to reject or diminish the authenticity of Hadith.
		

			Generally speaking, they haven't studied the sciences of Hadeeth. And they tend to dismiss the
efforts of great scholars like him and body and like great aroma of the scholars of Hadith, who have
spent so many, you know, decades and many lifetimes, developing an entire science and somebody comes
along, opens up some volume in some obscure book of headache, find something that he thinks is
doesn't make sense. And he goes, look, this is what the books had to say. And he rejects all of the
books of Hadith. And this clearly demonstrates that this person hasn't really studied the sciences,
the methodology, there is an entire discipline that scholars specialize in that hamdulillah I was
		

			blessed in my undergraduate years to study in the College of Hadeeth. It was a speciality. You know,
there were five different colleges. You had shittier you had Quranic sciences. You had the College
of Tao, you had the College of Arabic language, you study Arabic language and literature and poetry.
So I chose the College of heavy that was an entire speciality. And if I wanted to, I could have done
a Master's and PhD just in had the thesis
		

			Separate speciality, then somebody comes along without studying any of this. And he goes, Oh, it's
all you know, fairytales. No, it doesn't work that way. This Hadeeth is a good case study. And
that's why I'm spending some time doing it. We checked the it's not it is authentic stage two. Once
the it's not as authentic, let us double check the variations of wordings of the same Hadeeth
because and this is a very key factor that many people don't understand. One of the fundamental
differences between the Quran and between the Hadith is that the Quran has been narrated by
mutawatir by by too many people to count, and its wordings are preserved. Unlike the Hadith Hadees
		

			has been narrated by meaning and not by wording. What do I mean by this? And by the way, there's
this is no, everybody knows this. There's no controversy here. The scholars have headed this the
Sahaba and tabula with their earlier narrators, it was something well known that they're not
memorizing every word, and they can convey the meaning the gist of the meaning. And that's fine for
pretty much most rulings and concepts. But sometimes, sometimes, some narrator will convey the gist
of the meaning using a word that might have implications that are not what the prophet system
intended. And so we gather the other versions of the head the other versions of the incident. So in
		

			this hadith and Hadith of thauvin, it's seems to suggest that the gender is decided by both fluids
of the man and the woman that is quite clear that in the hadith of Toba, and that, frankly, is
somewhat problematic, because the gender is not decided by both the fluids of the man and the woman.
But you go and you compile and you gather, and you discover that this incident occurred in front of
a number of people, and Philbin was one of them. And another eyewitness was another evany Malik and
unassuming Malik has a much more detailed version of this incident. And he mentions the name of the
rabbi, and he mentions the story that occurred, and he mentions a totally different wording. not
		

			totally, totally, but still enough that we can actually discover a whole different meaning here. And
so what we discover is that the hadith of Oban was narrated by meaning and the concept was conveyed
but one of these wordings proved to be problematic. And the hadith of honest diplomatic which I'm
going to narrate now, was also conveyed by meaning, but it was closer to the original. So the hadith
of unassisted nomadic is in Sahih Bukhari and Sahih Muslim and by the way, Bukhari and Muslim are
obviously books that we respect the most after the Koran, and they are considered to be the best
efforts ever made in the history of our religion for preserving Hadith. But behati is head and
		

			shoulders above Muslim Buhari is unique in the history of the oma and I speak as somebody who has
studied these books in detail and has a jaza or, you know, license to teach these books that Sahil
Bahati the meticulous care that he mama Buhari undertook, it was super human like honestly, the more
you study, the more you understand this person was blessed with the memory of a supercomputer type
like literally what a man would body did, no other scholar have had even came close to and this is
not the time to, to to go into that reality. But the point being that Sahil Buhari is way above any
other book and that includes Sahih Muslim, and Imam Al Bukhari did not choose the version of
		

			autobahn he chose the version of unasyn pneumatic and this is very interesting. What is the version
on a cinematic honestly the medic said that Abdullah ibn Salaam, the Chief Rabbi of Medina.
		

			So he mentions the name, Abdullah bin Salaam herd heard that the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wa sallam
had come to Medina. And so he visited him. So now anessa Malik is giving us the name, and he's
giving us a time early in the hedgerow after the Hydra. And
		

			he said, I'm going to ask you three things that no one knows about other than a prophet. I'm going
to ask you three things that no one knows about other than a prophet. And he asked him what is going
to be you know the food of the people of Jenna, etc, etc. And then he said that and tell me where
does the similarity of the child come from? Sometimes the child goes after the father and sometimes
the child goes after the mother site. Notice here in this Hadeeth it's not the gender that is being
asked. It is the similarity the record shaba looks where does the looks of the child come? Sometimes
the child looks like the Father and the Father side. Sometimes the child looks like the mother on
		

			the mother's side.
		

			And the prophets of Allah Almighty Who was sending them said that, as for the Shabbat as for the
looks of the child, then when the man has conjugal relations with his woman, if his fluid subaqua
the fluid, I'll translate. Now subaqua means to win the race or it can mean soccer needs to be to be
first, it is fluid, subaqua her fluid, then the child will look like him. But if her fluid subaqua
his fluid, then the child looks like her, the child looks like her. Now, the word subaqua, it is
true that some translators translated as the one who released first. And that's not an incorrect
translation a sub o'clock can mean to be first. But the word subaqua also means to overpower the
		

			word subaqua also means to be dominant, to be the first. And so you can easily translate this as
saying that if the man's fluid overpowers the fluid of the woman, if the man's fluid is dominant
over the fluid of the woman, then the child will go on him. And if the woman's fluid is dominant
over that of the man, the child will go on her. Now, this translation fits in absolutely perfectly
with the modern concept of genetics, because whichever of the genes overpowers the other, the child
will be looking like that person. And in fact, even in modern biology, ask any student of genetics
what is the word that is used dominant genes, this is subaqua, this is what it is dominant genes.
		

			And dominant refers to the relationship between two versions of a gene like every single person,
every one of us, every child, it receives two versions of each gene, no one has illegals from each
parent. So if the ideals of the gene are different one earlier will be expressed, and that's the
dominant one, and the effect of the other eliel will be suppressed, and that is recessive. And so
every single parent will supply two versions of the same gene. And each of those genes, one of them
will be the dominant and the other will be the recessive or the mast and SubhanAllah. This is
exactly how we can understand the Hadith. If the man's dominant gene, if the man's gene dominates
		

			over the woman is going to look like the man, if the woman's gene dominates over the man, it will
look like the woman. So the point being that this Hadith, actually, far from being problematic, one
could say there's an element of speaking about, you know, elemental hype that was not known at the
time of the Prophet sallallahu alayhi wasallam. And by the way, this notion of preferencing the
hadith of body over that of Muslim it actually goes back to many earlier scholars who didn't know
anything about genetics and they are not problematizing the Hadid because of genetics, even though I
am writes that
		

			the that his teacher even taymiyah was asked about this hadith about you know, the gender and about
the, the Shabbat or the relationship and the looks, and even taymiyah said that he felt that the
wording that was more preserved better preserved was that of Annecy, demotic and additive owners in
Makati, and the wording of filburn in Sahih Muslim was not that preserved, it was not it wasn't done
properly. This is even taymiyah writing 800 years ago, for reasons have nothing to do with genetics
has nothing to do with science. He's simply looking at it from a purely IDT standpoint, and he is
saying that the hadith of Oban talks about gender. And I don't think this is what the process said.
		

			Actually, the question was about Shebaa was about looks, and that's what the professor said. And
that's what we also say over here that in fact, the Hadeeth Yes, you are correct. One version of it
mentions gender. And that is there. And we say that this is not is authentic. But just because an is
not has an outer sense of authenticity, there's something else that we look at. And that is that the
version of the Hadith is not contradict something that is stronger than it. We look at the other
narrations, we look at the stronger narrations. And we then try to find out that which wording would
be the more precise and in this case, in this case, it is very obvious that what the profitsystem
		

			was asked was, how does the child get the resemblance of the parent and the process and responded
essentially, the dominant genes which one he didn't use the wording and in all likelihood, these
wordings were not even known or but this is the miracle. And I have to point out here, this is not
quite related to this talk here. But I do have to point out to you that this is the time to mention
another fact and maybe in another q&a.
		

			I'll go into more detail but I might my philosophy when it comes to
		

			This whole notion of scientific miracles in the Quran and Sunnah is that we have to be super, super
careful. And we should not read too much science into our sacred texts. And that is because the
Quran and the Hadith of the Prophet sallallahu sallam, they are meant for our guidance, our ethics,
our morality, our laws, our spirituality, our theology, the reason why Allah revealed the Quran is
to tell us our purpose of life, to inform us of who he is, and what's going to happen to us after we
die. That's the ultimate purpose of the Quran. The Quran was not revealed to be a book of biology or
of medicine, or engineering or of architecture. And you know, in the 80s, there was this trend of
		

			scientific miracles in the Quran, and I grew up in that era, and all of us who are above the age of
30, you know, we grew up hearing talks and reading books and whatnot, and we loved it. Let's be
honest here, it increased our emaan we loved it. But you know, as we grew older, we began talking to
people outside our faith and they began challenging our interpretations, many of us began to realize
that you know, what we were reading in too much into these verses of verse might be ambiguous and
vague. We read in way too much science, and it wasn't meant at all. So I mean, I remember growing up
listening to this
		

			speaker say, the Oran has predicted space travel, and I was a child, I was 11 years old, Mashallah
the Oran predicted space travel. And what is the verse that is mentioned, so yamashiro, genuine ncns
so I thought it went on for photo minocqua semi Well, it would be fun for the latter photo to
elaborate upon so soltana here is the verse in, in sort of the Rockman, that all groups of gin and
and and, and men, if you can pass through the boundaries of the heavens enter then pass through, you
shall not pass through except for soul bond. And our speaker I was your child at the time I forgot
his name. Even the speaker said, the soul bond here it is Rocket Power, that Allah is referencing
		

			Rocket Power, that when you have the Rocket Power, you will go up to the moon Subhanallah Yanni
honestly, we make a mockery of ourselves in front of people of other faiths when we read in that,
you know, Allah predicted space travel, this verse has nothing to do with space travel, it has to do
with the day of judgment and the jinn overhearing and what not. It's nothing to do with the space
travel. And also, when we read in too much science, we actually open the door for people to then
challenge us and say, well, you don't believe in that scientific theory, you say that your book is a
book of science, but how about the theory of evolution, which by and large, and, you know, we'll
		

			talk about that I'm doing my series of the profits and inshallah, one of the lectures I'll
summarize, you know, the notion of of the theory of evolution, obviously, I don't believe that Adam,
it has said I'm had a precedence in other species that I believe Allah created Adam, and Allah sent
Adam down. But no scientist is going to say that every scientist by and large says, that is the
revolution, then he's going to say, your book clearly then goes against science. And you're going to
say, ah, but this and that. So here's the point, brothers and sisters, what are you very clear here,
our eemaan in the Koran is not linked to science. Our eemaan in the Koran is not linked to its
		

			conformity with modern theories, or classical theories. Science is our interpretation of the world,
and much of it is right, and much of it is hypotheses. So when it's right, and the origin is in
conformity Alhamdulillah when it's, there's a clash, then we look what is the meaning of the Quran,
and what is the definitive notion of science, and we then have different ways to work. Beyond this,
there can never be an actual clash, as I said many many times, there can be a perception of classes,
so we are clashes. So we have to be clear here that in case there is a perceived conflict, it should
not shake our belief in the Koran or sooner simply because the Quran and Sunnah did not come to tell
		

			us about science. Rather, there are words in the Quran that describe nature. And those wordings are
very precise for their timeframes the way Allah describes the embryo, the way Allah describes the
cycle of the water, for example, right, that a lot talks about the rain coming down and being sent
back up and whatnot. So the way Allah talks about the winds, you know, helping the clouds form,
okay, yeah, fair enough. The the way that the Quran describes natural events, there is no question
that they are ahead of their time that somebody who's an illiterate person in Arabia would not
describe those phenomenon, the way that the Quran does. So we can say, the language of the Quran, it
		

			conforms with the facts that we know yes, no problem. But to say that it predicted those facts to
say that the Quran came to tell us about the Big Bang and to tell us, no, all of this is reading in
too much. And we then open up a Pandora's box that I think it is unwise to do. So, bottom line, the
brother asks a very good question and it is a question that methodologically we have to think about
many other hadith of this nature as well. But generally
		

			Broadly speaking, when we approach the tradition with an open mind, and we approach the with the
knowledge of the sciences of Hades, that almost inevitably we discover that there's not necessarily
a clash and that rather rather this was a perceived clash in our minds. And this is one case over
here, the Hadeeth is not talking about gender, or else honestly perhaps then there might be an issue
because the gender is not related to both fluids. Rather The idea is talking about resemblance and
because of this, there is really absolutely no clash whatsoever. If anything, it is in conformity
with what we know and Allah subhanho wa Taala knows best
		

			he can