Originally Posted by AntiKarateKid

I read this somewhere and was wondering if it was true.

"As for the resemblance of the child to its parents; if a man has sexual intercourse with his wife and gets a discharge first, the child will resemble the father, and if the woman gets her discharge first, the child will resemble her." (Sahih al-Bukhari, Volume 4, Number 546)

Is this hadith right? I don't understand it.

First of all, the hadeeth is misquoted. The genuine hadeeth doesn't say "the child will resemble her" instead it says, the child will resemble the maternal uncle (her child will resembe her brother). Why is this important? This clearly shows that it is in the case of a boy, and not in the case of a girl. Remember this for later.
(source)

What we know of biology, is that people carry both dominant and regressive genes. When the man produces sperm, or the woman produces egg cells. Each DNA is split into two, so for each two egg cells or sperm cells made, there will be one carrying the regressive traits and one carrying the dominant. It seems unlikely that whether the egg cell carrying the dominant or the regressive traits is released from the ovaries, is determined by the timing of sexual discharge, simply because the egg cell could have been already released prior to it. However, which sperm cell makes it to the egg cell is still la big mystery to science. Certainly the better swimmer will get there first; but the egg cell doesn't always open up. So is it possible for the dominant/regressive-trait sperm cell to be affected by it? Maybe, maybe not, we really can't say at this point, but what we can't say is that science doesn't deny it.

So now for the second part, what decides whether it is a boy or girl? The sex is decided by which sperm cell makes it. Woman have an XX gene whereas men have XY. So the woman's egg cell always caries one X-gene whereas the man's sperm cells come with either an X-gene or with a Y-gene. If a Y-gene makes it, then the fusion XY will make a male embryo; whereas if a sperm cell carrying an X-gene makes it, the XX fusion will make a female embryo. Important here is that the sex is thus always decided by the sperm, and not by the egg cells.

Now, I'll leave it to that, since it shows that there is still room within science for this hadeeth to be truthful. There's a lot to say still, like how the moment of discharge could alter the pH of the woman's womb, or we could talk about how some dominant and regressive traits could be mixed on the same gene, or about what really qualifies as "resembling". But I think that all that that would result to is speculation. So unless someone does some serious scientific research on this, we'll have to conclude science does not contradict this hadeeth.

Originally Posted by Abdul Fattah

First of all, the hadeeth is misquoted. The genuine hadeeth doesn't say "the child will resemble her" instead it says, the child will resemble the maternal uncle (her child will resembe her brother). Why is this important? This clearly shows that it is in the case of a boy, and not in the case of a girl.

What exactly are you saying? That a girl cannot resemble her father?

Since you pointed it out, the maternal uncle part is quite important. From what you know of genetics, why on earth should it resemble either the father or the maternal uncle? The genetic load is inherited from the mother, and the whole point of this argument is that brothers and sisters are not born alike.
Why then would the maternal uncle come into it at all, since he might inherit completely different traits to his sister, they might each resemble a different one of their own parents.

It could also be the case that a child resembles neither parent, nor anyone in living memory. There was a case in time of the Prophet pbuh in which a black baby was born to two arab parents. This is because the child received two lots of recessive genes that had previously not been expressed in either parent. There was a case like this fairly recently in South Africa where a black african looking baby was born to two white parents.

It's conceivable that an X or Y sperm might be affected by womb conditions, but that is only to determine the sex, whether the child resembles either parent or none is determined by the expression of the dominant and recessive genes, which are not dependent at all on the sex chromosomes.
For example, if the mother is fair haired, blue eyed she carries two lots of recessive genes. The father carries two copies of the dominant dark hair, dark eyes gene.
There is no possible combination of the parents genes that could lead to the child having fair hair and blue eyes. Timing of the 'discharge' would make absolutely zero difference in such cases.

Secondly, how can 'Abdullah bin Salam verify the answers of the Prophet?

The reason why the correction makes a difference is because the hadeeth is clearly revering to boys. That doesn't mean that girls cannot resemble their father, or boys resemble their mother. That only means, that the explanation is only referring to the case of a boy either resembling his father or his maternal uncle. As I said in my previous post we need to consider which characteristics they meant. Not all traits are simply dominant/regressive like the color of eyes. Some are co-optive and even other traits are dependent on two or even more separate genes. Like some might rely on the presence of high levels of testosterone in order to work. Meaning that a woman carrying these genes will not show the specific traits. Other then that, yeah, you're right, I forgot about the uncle having to have it to, that does seem to pose a problem at first time. I need to think this trough a bit longer.

Anyway, this still doesn't exclude the possibility that the hadeeth refers to characteristics that aren't necessarily DNA-dependent. Like a person's character for example.

You seem to have neglected the fact that the answer the Prophet pbuh gave is "the child will resemble her" even if the question doesn't say that.

Originally Posted by Azy

You seem to have neglected the fact that the answer the Prophet pbuh gave is "the child will resemble her" even if the question doesn't say that.

Oh wait, yes well noticed, so the hadeeth isn't contradicted by science afterall. Although the jew asked why does he resemble the maternals uncle, the prophet (peace be upon him) answered he will resemble her. So the hadeeth doesn't contradict genetics afterall ^_^

brother, this hadith seems to be very open to interpretation. Here is a scholarly article written on the subject of this hadith.

http://www.rcpe.ac.uk/publications/a...n_genetics.pdf


This makes alot of sense now.

Originally Posted by AntiKarateKid

brother, this hadith seems to be very open to interpretation. Here is a scholarly article written on the subject of this hadith.

http://www.rcpe.ac.uk/publications/a...n_genetics.pdf


This makes alot of sense now.

JK bro

The article contains Simple n Honest analisys..

I did put this one to a geneticist.
Result here.

Also I'm still curious about how Abdullah bin Salam could verify the Prophet's (pbuh) answers.

I would also be interested to hear what you think of this hadith, a few on from the one you were discussing:

Volume 4, Book 55, Number 550:

Narrated Anas bin Malik:

The Prophet said, "Allah has appointed an angel in the womb, and the angel says, 'O Lord! A drop of discharge (i.e. of semen), O Lord! a clot, O Lord! a piece of flesh.' And then, if Allah wishes to complete the child's creation, the angel will say. 'O Lord! A male or a female? O Lord! wretched or blessed (in religion)? What will his livelihood be? What will his age be?' The angel writes all this while the child is in the womb of its mother."