Phases of development according to  the Sunnah

      According to the talks (Ahadith) of Prophet Mohammad,   peace and blessings be upon him, it can appreciated that  there are  2 phases of human development : 

 

A) During the first  forty days :  

          The hadith that describes the the human development in the first forty days  was narrated by  Abdullah Ibn  Mas’ud -  may he be contented by Allah - , he said : The  prophet  ( peace and blessings be upon him ), the most truthful and trusted , told us : In any one of you , all components of his creation are collected together in his mother’s womb  by 40 days , and in that it is an alaqah like that , then in that it is a mudghah like that. Then God sends an angle and order him with four instructions. He is told to record  his  livelihood ( his sustenance ) , his age , his  deeds , whether he will be miserable or happy , and then the spirit is breathed into him    ( the soul is acquired)...”      ( revealed  in Sahih Muslim, book of destiny " in Arabic Kitab al-Kadar"  and also  in Sahih Al-Bukhari , beginning of creation book "in Arabic Kitab Ba'doul Khalq " ; the words of the hadith mentioned above is that shown by Muslim narration , which the the same as that shown in  the narration of Al-Bukhari , except  that the phrase “in that” was  not mentioned ).

 

        There are two facts that could be noticed in the preceding hadith:

1. The collection of components ( Jam’al-Khalq ) : the components of human creation are collected together in the first 40 days.

2. During this period , the early stages of development ( nutfah , alaqah and mudghah ) begin and end .

 

B) After the  forty second day:

          Prophet Mohammad (peace and blessings be upon him) mentioned the developmental events of embryo after the 42nd  day and their timing in the following hadith which was narrated by Hudhaifah Ibn Usiad  El-Ghifari  : " When 42 nights have passed over the nutfah ( a drop of mingled fluid ), God sends an angel to it, who shapes it (into human form) and makes its hearing, sight, skin, muscles and bones. Then he says, "O Lord, is it male or female?" and your Lord decides what He wishes and the angel records it . Then the angel goes out with  this document of destiny of this nutfah in his hand  and he does not add to the received orders or subtract from them  " (Sahih Muslim: Book of destiny , in Arabic called  Kitab Al-Qadar).

 

       From the above  ahadith (pleural name of hadith ; the talk of the prophet) , it becomes clear that prophet Mohammad , peace and blessings be upon him , had determined the importance of the 42nd day , as embryological studies have shown that prior to the 42nd  day ( the seventh week in modern embryology ), it is difficult to distinguish the human embryo's appearance from the appearance of embryos of many other species such as the chicken, fish, or rabbit and that acquiring the human appearance occurs exactly after the 42nd  day in the intrauterine prenatal development. Thus , it is clear that the previous hadith reported  since the 7th century had described details that are  in complete accordance with modern embryological studies.