Page 76 - The Miracle of Human Creation

The Determination of the Baby's Sex

Until recently, people believed that a baby's
sex was determined by the mother's cells,
or, at least, that the sex was determined
by cells from both the mother and the
father. But in the Qur'an there is a
different account of this matter; it
says that maleness and femaleness
are created from sperm entering the
womb:
He (God) has created both sexes,
male and female, from a drop of
semen which has been ejected.
(Qur'an, 53: 45-46)
The truth of this revelation of the Qur'an
has been confirmed scientifically by develop-
ments in genetics and microbiology. It is now under-
stood that sex is determined by the male sperm and that the female egg plays no role
in this determination. What determines sex is chromosomes. Of the 46 chromosomes
that determine the human structure, two are called sex chromosomes. These two chro-
mosomes are labelled XY in males and XX in females, because the respective chromo-
somes resemble these letters. The Y chromosome carries male genes and the X
chromosome carries female genes. The formation of a human being begins with the
union of one of each of these chromosomes which are present in pairs in the male and
female. During ovulation in the female, the sex cell divides into two, each carrying the
X chromosome. In males, the sex cell divides into two sperm, one carrying the X chro-
mosome and the other carrying the Y chromosome. If the X chromosome in the female
unites with a sperm carrying the X chromosome, the baby will be a girl; if it unites with
a sperm containing the Y chromosome, the baby will be a boy.
That is, the sex of the baby depends on which chromosome in the male unites with
the female egg.
Certainly, until the science of genetics appeared, that is, until the twentieth century,
these facts were unknown. In many cultures it was generally believed that a baby's sex
was determined by the female. Precisely for this reason, a woman who gave birth to a
girl was condemned. However, in the Qur'an, 13 centuries before the discovery of
genes, this superstition was rejected by the revelation that the origins of sex do not
come from the female, but from the semen of the male.
The Qur'an is the word of God, the Lord of all the worlds. Such scientific miracles are