Islamic Exegesis and Law Have Historically Centered Women’s Rights in the Discussion of Abortion. That History Is Relevant Today in Addressing the Epidemic of Black Childbirth-Related Deaths.
Lost amid political and legal clashes over reproductive rights, dark-skinned maternal morbidity is a human rights tragedy
Amid the volatility over abortion, which renders disenfranchised populations invisible and silent, Islamic tradition has preserved both women’s priority over the baby in life-threatening situations and the value of fetal life.
Since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v Wade on June 24, individual states have taken their own disparate paths to legal compliance. Although most American Muslims rightly support women’s reproductive rights (www.ispu.org/2022-abortion-data/), we must recognize a glaring omission in that narrative: According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, during childbirth Black women die from preventable conditions at three times the rate of white women and at a higher rate than any other ethnic or racial group (advocate.nyc.gov/reports/).
Whereas abortion rights proponents see the lack of quality health care as the main reason for this crisis, the rationale cannot explain Serena Williams’ ordeal in childbirth. The tennis star heightened awareness of systemic racism by revealing that she had to draw on every ounce of her authority and status to ensure that an otherwise well-qualified medical team took her complaints of pain seriously in time to save her life.
Williams’ experience is not rare. The 2022 award-winning documentary “Aftershock” tells the stories of Shamony Gibson and Amber Rose Isaac, two Black mothers who died postpartum despite having qualified medical care. And yet their complaints of fatigue, strain, and other warning signs were dismissed, and they were denied further examinations. Both orphaned infants survived.
Amid the volatility over abortion, which renders disenfranchised populations invisible and silent, Islamic tradition has preserved women’s priority over the baby in life-threatening medical situations and the value of fetal life. The subtlety in Islam’s position on abortion makes it indispensable today against the juggernaut of pregnancy-related Black deaths. Contextualizing how Islamic tradition advanced such a view may help bridge the contemporary polarization to center Black women’s experiences in American public discourse.
Embryology in Qur’anic Exegesis
Islamic jurisprudence arose nearly a century and a half after the Hijra and followed the movement to record Qur’anic interpretation in writing. While commenting on 23:13–14 (below), which describes conception, tafsir authors elaborated assumptions that would inform legal deliberations on abortion until today.
“We cause him to remain as a drop of sperm in [the womb’s] firm keeping. And then We create out of the drop of sperm a germ-cell, and then We create out of the germ-cell an embryonic lump, and then We create within the embryonic lump bones, and then We clothe the bones with flesh — and then We bring [all] this into being as a new creation: hallowed, therefore, is God, the best of artisans.”
According to the Saudi Arabian exegete/jurist ‘Abd al-Rahman al-Sa‘di, the verses trace atwar al-Adami (phases of genesis) and tanqilatihi (the shift from one to another). Instead of explaining nutfa only as a drop of semen (its typical meaning), he writes that it originated bayn al-sulb wa al-tara’ib, the large arteries between the spine and collarbone that transmit the heart’s blood. Instead of defining ‘alaqa as a clinging tissue in utero as commonly understood, he explains that the zygote is made secure against any injury or forceful dislocation (mahfutha min al-fasad wa al-rih wa ghayr thalik).
Embryogenesis proceeds from a flexible, ridged flesh (mudgha) to a skeletal structure (‘itham) that replaces the flesh, and finally to an exterior layer of skin (lahm) clothing the bones. Each phase emerges out of the prior form. All occur during rest (fatastaqir) in the womb’s safekeeping, equipping the fetus in proportion to the individual anatomy required (bihasab hajat al-badan ilayha), measure for measure. Repeated three times, the phrase arba‘in yawm stresses the toll each stage exacts on the maternal body for 40 days.
Above all, we notice the profundity of the duration of time female physiology nurtures the unborn. Similarly, paternal biology is associated with the physical heart (rather than desire). Even as a morsel of flesh, genesis unfurls through biological events and environments imbued with the love and shelter of Divine largesse. Only in the seventh phase, designated a new creation (khalqan akhar), does Allah’s revelation mention the soul (nufikha fihi al-ruh). The sanctuary afforded in the womb, then, is independent of “ensoulment.”
Indeed, the Arabic cognate meaning uterus, al-rahm, is etymologically related to mercy (rahma). In elaborating this positive depiction of female biology, al-Sa‘di agreed with the renowned scholar Abu Hamid al-Ghazzali’s medieval ruling on abortion: “The first stages of existence are the settling of the semen in the womb and its mixing with the secretions of the woman… Disturbing it is a crime. When it develops further and becomes a lump, aborting it is a great crime. When it acquires a soul and its creation is completed, the crime becomes more grievous. The crime reaches a maximum seriousness when it is committed after it (the foetus) is separated (from the mother) alive” (Yusuf Al-Qaradawi, The Lawful and the Prohibited in Islam, Plainfield: 1994, 202).
Although abortion is always illegal (unless lethal to the mother’s life), the developmental timeline determines the crime’s severity. The more protracted the time fetal biology “mixes” with and depends on the maternal body, the more egregious the crime of “disturbing” or “separating.” By referring to the Qur’anic continuum, each scholar pointed out the incremental, time-intensive and taxing draw on the expectant mother’s health. For al-Ghazzali, as the female body sacrifices more and more on the fetus’ behalf, the mother accrued legal protections with each passing day. In that case, abortion’s permissibility concerned ensoulment less than the maternal-fetal bond forged as a function of time. In essence, the soul’s endowment, like the delivery of a newborn alive, marks the moment when psychological attachment between mother and progeny reached its peak, conferring on the mother the best claim to custody.
The language of separation in revelatory verses is telling. Verse 2:233 stipulates, “And if both [parents] decide, by mutual consent and counsel, upon separation [of mother and child], they will incur no sin… if you decide to entrust your children to foster-mothers, you will incur no sin provided you ensure…the safety of the child.”
As the verse relates, another woman may nurse the infant if the biological mother approves the separation. Following the same reasoning, al-Ghazzali rules about abortion, “The crime reaches a maximum seriousness when it is committed after… (the foetus) is separated (from the mother) alive.”
The verdict alludes to the particularly lethal intersection of gender and infancy that held sway in pre-Islamic Arabia, where female infants were buried alive. Islam’s advent chipped away at the oppressive yet accepted custom. But that was not the only reversal Islam initiated, for Islamic law also prioritized the mother’s life in pregnancy-related emergencies.
As the late Egyptian mufti Yusuf al-Qaradawi clarified, even when “the baby is completely formed,” if carrying to term threatens the mother’s life, “abortion must be performed” (202). The opinion drew on the first part of 2:233: “No human being shall be burdened with more than he/she can bear: neither shall a mother be made to suffer because of her child.”
In a precarious historical era, the verse explicitly enshrined a woman’s right to life by guaranteeing maternal safety.
That these two categories (women and children) simultaneously attained a sociomoral standing and legal status is astonishing. In the words of one journalist, the controversy over reproductive choice has typically “pitted the fetus against the woman” (Andrew Cockburn, “The Fight to Choose,” Harper’s Magazine, Aug. 2022).
By identifying infanticide as the most egregious sort of separation, al-Ghazzali exposed a tacit problem — a third party might exploit a pregnancy to expel the embryo/fetus without informed maternal consent. Overall, Muslim male scholars’ legal works showcase a now under-appreciated effort to grant women bodily autonomy as the best means of guaranteeing their and their children’s right to life. Grasping the immensity of this project requires a comparison with Western developments.
The Female Body and Western History
According to Siddhartha Mukherjee, embryology began with Pythagoras’s theory that the father determined all the fetus’s “essential information.” Although Aristotle objected to the mother’s exclusion, male-determined heredity was the more convincing notion in Europe until 1700. In this theory, known as preformation, sperm contained a shrunken “minihuman” who began to expand into a fetus after uterine implantation (The Gene: An Intimate History, New York: 2016, 21–26).
In a synopsis of medical, political, and legal policies concerning abortion and women’s bodies implemented first by the Catholic church and, later, European nations, Dr. Mohammed Albar has explained, “The Catholic church … in the 7th century instituted a canon for capital punishment of women who had abortions … Laws were passed making abortion punishable by death, in England in 1524; in Germany in 1531; in France in 1562; and in Russia in 1649 … With the advent of the industrial revolution and social upheavals in the 18th and 19th centuries, European countries gradually revoked the previous harsh laws … By 1929, the law in Britain allowed abortion if continuation of pregnancy was expected to endanger the health of the expectant mother” (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3439741).
Women’s Bodies and Social Change under Islam’s Purview
By contrast, Muslims’ accounts of embryogenesis avoided male-centrism from the onset. Because the Qur’an neither denigrated nor excluded female biology, it inspired a revolutionary change in social attitudes, eventually channeling into legal decisions that avoided criminalizing or penalizing women’s bodies. For instance, the Tunisian reformer and legal theorist Muhammad Ibn ‘Ashur (d.1973) thought that female bodily liberty as defined by Islamic tradition was an exemplary ground for human rights: “The first category consists of original rights to which people are entitled by their inborn constitution and innate disposition … It also includes one’s right to what ensues from oneself, such as a woman’s right to the children that she bears” (Treatise on Maqasid al-Shari‘ah, London: 2006, 240).
Arising out of genetic constitution, the right described is inalienable, defining an individual right. This higher and inseparable status differentiates maternal from paternal custody, “The second category … can be illustrated by the father’s right to his children, whom the Law … in view of their specific relationship to him, considers his offspring for the following reasons” (241). A father’s right to his children thus depended on the strength of the mother-infant relationship.
As this history discloses, we remain woefully ignorant of the degree Islamic jurisprudence empowered women. Most (non-cleric) Muslims today have internalized the nuance in that position and favor protecting maternal and fetal life by honoring that bond.
As Dorothy Roberts clarifies, “Respecting Black women’s decisions to bear children is a necessary ingredient of a community that affirms the personhood of all of its members” (Killing the Black Body, New York: 2016, 311). As polls open in November, endorsing politicians who support abortion rights can prevent dismantling services critical for underprivileged American women. However, we would do well to remember that Muslims secured a sea-change in law (that has never been overturned) by first challenging misconceptions about women and depicting the female body positively to reform denigrating attitudes and practices. Today, as dark-skinned women and infants face childbirth-related death and separation disproportionately, leading the reproductive rights conversation with Black women’s voices and stories is vital to transforming public consciousness and perpetuating racial/gender justice.
