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Starting a new book project on gendered experiences in IslamicBioEthics. Finally wrote up a thread on the IslamicBioEthics of abortion & why most Muslim jurists permit it up to 120 days (17wks). Esp for responding to anti-Muslim framing of American abortion bans as Islamic.
Most jurists permit abortion for any reason up to 120 days after conception, which they mark as the moment of *ensoulment* and after 120 days in case of grave danger to the mother or severe/fatal abnormalities of the fetus.
This is based on their reading of Qur’anic verses 23:12-14, 32:7-9 in conjunction with a hadith about the various stages of gestation. The verses outline stages of human creation that are parallel to fetal development, translate to: “Verily, We created the human from an essence..
of clay; then placed him as a seed-drop firm in a resting place; then We fashioned the seed-drop into a clot, then We fashioned the clot into an embryonic lump, then We fashioned the embryonic lump into bones, then clothed the bones with flesh, and then it is produced as another
creation. So blessed be Allah, the Best of creators.” Q 32:7–9, still referring to developmental stages, mentions a moment in which God breathes spirit into a fetus: “The One Who made all things good He created good, He began the creation of man from clay. Then He made his
offspring from an extract of insignificant water. Then He fashioned him and breathed into him of His Spirit; and appointed for you the hearing and the sight and the feelings. What little thanks you give.” In a hadith that is largely read by bioethicists/jurists as superimposing a
timeline onto this fetal development, Prophet Muhammad specifies that forty days elapse between each of these stages, so that 120 days elapse before the Qur’anic references to a being “produced as another creation” and the breathing in of God’s spirit. The hadith reads: “Each one
of you is constituted in the womb of the mother for forty days, and then he becomes a clot of thick blood for a similar period, and then a piece of flesh for a similar period. Then Allah sends an angel who is ordered to write four things. He is ordered to write down his deeds,
his livelihood, his (date of) death, and whether he will be blessed or wretched (in religion). Then the soul is breathed into him. . .” Based on these scriptural sources, most legal schools of thought state that *ensoulment* occurs 120 days after conception, which also happens
to be approximately the time when a mother begins to feel fetal movement, or quickening. It is also at this 120-day point that jurists consider the fetus a legal person who can inherit, leave an inheritance to its relatives if it dies in utero, or permit the mother/father to
receive blood money if someone causes maternal injury resulting in fetal death. In other words, the fetus is considered a legal person after 120 days of gestation, and not just for the purpose of determining whether abortion is permissible.
That said, there are *many* Muslims who believe abortion is not permitted at all in Islamic law (despite the existence of numerous fatwas to the contrary) because of various reasons: 1. They assume it is something only promiscuous women have need for and thus think it’s haram;
2. Conservative American Muslim shaykhs have been evangelicalized, as @tinymuslim mentions in her discussion on @RadioIslamUSA; 3. They narrowly read Q5:32 which states: “Whosoever has taken a human life, it is as if he has taken the life of humankind.” In addition to this verse,
they may cite the verse prohibiting female infanticide (81:8–9) and verses prohibiting killing one’s children for financial survival (6:151 & 17:31). None of these verses addresses issue of when *life begins*. For that most Muslim scholars have focused on the 120-day mark of
ensoulment. Evangelical shaykhs/imams & anti-Muslim/islamophobic voices seem to be in agreement on what's Islamic, which is rather off from juristic discussions on the matter, & ...
which is probably also off from *real* Muslim women’s beliefs, practices/experiences with abortion, which Inshallah I hope to engage with in my book project. /end Thanks for bearing with this long thread.
