Is there a scientific method to determine whether a child is a boy or a girl while still in the mother’s womb during pregnancy? Is this true?

The questioner : He saysThe questioner : Is there a scientific method to determine whether a child is a boy or a girl while still in the mother’s womb during pregnancy? Is this true?

The Shaykh : As for whether this is true or not, that is not within my area of expertise, because this relates to the science of medicine. However, to the extent of what we have read, the matter is still within the bounds of research and verification. I feel that the motivation for such a question is thatThe questioner : he or someone else fears that this will become a scientific reality, in which case it would conflict with the religious texts that explicitly state that no one knows what is in the wombs except Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He). This misconception is what causes some Muslims to fear that this news is true, leading to a conflict between empirical knowledge and religious knowledge. In reality, there is no fear for the Islamic creed regarding this matter, just as there is no fear in any of the issues of Islam if it is scientifically established that it is possible to know whether the fetus is male or female through any of the means, or through any of the scientific tools that Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) makes available to whom He wills among His servants. There is no fear of that, because the intent behind Allah’s (Mighty and Majestic) exclusive knowledge of what is in the wombs is two things:
The first thing is that He knows it with intrinsic knowledge, whereas this empirical knowledge is known through a means that Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) creates for whom He wills among His servants, as we mentioned. So there is a difference between divine knowledge, which is intrinsic knowledge ; He does not need a means, while the servants need to utilize every one of the means that Allah makes available for them, through which they gain access to what is usually hidden from the rest of people who do not utilize these means. Therefore, distinguishing between intrinsic knowledge of the unseen is very necessary. We should always keep this in mind in such issues that pose difficulties for some people. You know a scientific fact without doubt or hesitation, which is that many astronomers predict eclipses before they occur, not by months, not by a year, and not by years, but through very precise calculations of what Allah has made available for people, as we mentioned, enabling them to predict and inform people about solar and lunar eclipses for many years to come. Moreover, their news usually contains precise details, such that they say the eclipse in such-and-such a region will be a total eclipse, in a second region it will be hidden, in a third region it will be partial, and so on. The eclipse is seen in one place and not seen in another, and so forth. Is this, which has become a tangible matter without doubt or hesitation—and it is not like the issue regarding which the question was directed, namely solar and lunar eclipses, which we always read about in the newspapers and which actually occur—part of the knowledge of the unseen that Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) has exclusively, as in many verses, including: ?
The answer is: No, because the intent of the unseen here is what many people who claim affiliation with Sufism or the Sufi paths imagine, where they mention in the books of these people that such-and-such a close friend of Allah would look like this and gain access to the Preserved Tablet, saying: So-and-so will die, so-and-so will be happy, so-and-so will be wretched, and so on. This intrinsic knowledge belongs to Allah alone, with no partner in anything, and among that is that He has no partner in the knowledge of the unseen.
I mentioned to you in a previous session the saying of Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He): . Look at how He speaks and distinguishes between His (Blessed and Exalted is He) knowledge of the unseen. He mentions that He knows the unseen by His essence. As for the chosen, noble messengers who sometimes bring us some of the unseen, their knowledge of it is not from the category of intrinsic knowledge of the unseen from themselves, but rather from Allah’s disclosure of it to them . So He does not disclose, and no one is informed of that unseen, except whom He chooses as a messenger. Therefore, these many, and very many, hadiths that have come in the books of hadith, which specifically fall under the signs of the Hour, whether they are the major or minor signs, this is not from the Prophet’s knowledge of the unseen, because as we mentioned, Allah (Glorified and Exalted is He) has exclusively this, but rather it is from Allah’s (Mighty and Majestic) disclosure to His Prophet of what He wills of the unseen. If we understand this fact, it becomes easy for us to understand that the astronomers’ prediction of solar and lunar eclipses is not from the category of gaining access to the unseen, nor is it from the category of knowledge of the unseen, but rather it is their utilization of the means that Allah has made available for them, through which they reach knowledge of what is hidden from the rest of people. These people, in reality, if they followed the same path of learning through the means they have learned, and were able through them to know when the eclipse occurs—with the details mentioned previously—they would also know the eclipse and the lunar eclipse with their knowledge.
Therefore, knowledge of something hidden from people through a means that Allah created is not from the category of knowing the unseen; so there is no problem. For example, there is a matter I read long ago in some books that may be true—and it is the norm—that a farmer can know the age of a tree after cutting its trunk from the rings he sees in the trunk itself. They say that every ring means a year, so if there are two rings in this trunk, he says the age of this tree is two years, three, three, and so on. In fact, I read something more precise and stranger than that, which is that it is possible to know the age of a person by looking at the lines seen with some precision in a person’s fingernails, where every line also means a year. This is what concerns me: whether it is true or not, like the issue of the fetus and discovering whether it is male or female. But if it is true, there is no problem, and it is not from the category of sharing with Allah (Mighty and Majestic) in the knowledge of the unseen, but rather it is from the path of utilizing these means that Allah created and recognizing through them what is hidden from people. If we understand this, it does not concern us at all whether the medical discovery of the fetus’s identity—whether it is male or female—is true or not, because if it is true, it is not from the category of knowledge of the unseen, but rather it is from the category of utilizing the means that Allah has made available for man to discover the matters behind them that are usually hidden from the rest of people. I said: This does not mean sharing with Allah in the unseen from two aspects; this is one of them.
The other is: When Allah (Blessed and Exalted is He) said: , meaning: He alone knows in detail. If science, for example, can discover the identity of the fetus—whether it is male or female—but it cannot encompass knowledge of this fetus, for example, whether it will be complete or incomplete, meaning whether its creation will be perfect or imperfect? Then He knows what is in the wombs before the clot attaches to the ovum—as they say—with the man’s semen. As soon as the man ejaculates his water into the woman’s womb, Allah (Mighty and Majestic) knows whether this water will coagulate or not, and if it coagulates, whether it will be male or female, and if it is male or female, whether its creation will be complete or not? Will it be happy or wretched? Or what else? These details are impossible for science, no matter how high it rises, to encompass with knowledge. That is what Allah (Mighty and Majestic) has exclusively, and it is the meaning of His saying: .