اختيار جنس الجنيـن في ضوء الفقه الإسلامي: دراسة مقارنة ......................................... Selection of Gender during Pregnancy in Islamic Law: A Comparative Study
Abstract
The meaning of fetus in the terminology of jurists, according to the writer, is “a developing human before birth after the organs have developed”. The choice of the gender of the fetus involves the procedures couples go through for the purpose of determining or influencing the gender of the fetus. Geneticists report that the gender of the fetus is determined by a pair of chromosomes from both parents, providing two specific combinations, one for each gender.
According to the findings of this paper, Islam permits the use of natural methods to choose the gender of the fetus such as; diet, bathing salts, the timing of sexual intercourse. Contemporary Muslim scholars, however, hold that it is prohibited to choose the gender of the fetus on the scale of states and societies, because it leads to interference in law of nature.
Most of legal systems also prohibit the selection of gender of a fetus in general as well as at individual and collective levels; the only exception is medical reasons.
Muslim jurists have differed on the question of destroying the redundant over-fertilized ova and this writer prefers the view that it is permissible, but it must be left without nourishment until its life has naturally run its course, and this does not amount to an abortion, since the sperm did not get settled in the womb.It is a condition of publication in this journal that authors assign copyright or license publication rights of their articles to the Islamic Research Institute, International Islamic University,Islamabad. This enables IRI to ensure full copyright protection and to disseminate the article, and of course the journal, to the widest possible readership in print and electronic formats as appropriate. Furthermore, the authors are required to secure permission if they want to reproduce any figure, table, or extract from the text of another source. This applies to direct reproduction as well as "derivative reproduction" (where you have created a new figure or table which derives substantially from a copyrighted source).
