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﴿ فَاسْأَلُوا أَهْلَ الذِّكْرِ إِن كُنتُمْ لَا تَعْلَمُونَ ﴾

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The knowledge of doctors regarding the sex of the fetus and His saying, the Exalted: “And He knows what is in the wombs”

Machine translationRead the Arabic original
The questioner:
And Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success, some people say that contemporary doctors know the sex of the fetus sufficiently, that he does not believe in it, this is the end of his saying, Allah the Exalted said:
and knows what is in the wombsوَيَعْلَمُ مَا فِي الْأَرْحَامِ
[Luqman 31:34]


The Shaykh:
They did not know this except through the rays that revealed it, so it became like a newborn; they did not know it by their own knowledge, but rather they knew it through the rays. This is not knowledge; this is something that has become visible. It has become visible, which is not knowledge. Allah, Mighty and Majestic, knows what is in the wombs without things, without intermediaries, and without [anything else]. This is from one aspect. The second aspect is that the matter of the fetus—whether it is wretched or happy, a disbeliever or a believer, long-lived or short-lived—doctors do not know this; rather, Allah, Glorified and Exalted, knows it. He is the One who knows the matter of this fetus. He knows its state: is it wretched or happy? Will its life be prolonged or not? What has He decreed for it?
Doctors do not know this; rather, Allah knows it. The verse did not limit itself; Allah, Glorified and Exalted, did not say, “He knows what is in the wombs, whether it is male or female.” He did not say that. He said, “He knows what is in the wombs,” and He made it general. So the fact that doctors have known a partial aspect through magnifiers and through rays does not indicate that they know what is in the wombs, because they only came to know this after it appeared in the rays and became apparent and known, just as if it were born. If it is born, we know it and know that it is male or female. So the rays made it as if it were outside and as if it were prominent. Therefore, they have no distinction in this.

Another questioner:
And Allah, you will also choose them likewise continuously.

The Shaykh:
And they may make a mistake. They may think it is male, but it turns out to be female. The rays may also make a mistake. But if you brought the most skilled doctor in the world and stood him by the pregnant woman, like our knowledge of what is in the belly of this female—whether it is male or female—without rays or without anything else, can he do it? He cannot.
Source شرح بلوغ المرام من أدلة الأحكام [ صالح الفوزان ]، تابع باب الآنية - 2 — islamhouse.com (1:03:03)

The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.

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