quran-46-15-pregnancy-duration
A common polemic claims that Qur’an 46:15 implies a pregnancy duration of only six months — contradicting biology. The verse states:
“His mother carried him with hardship and gave birth to him with hardship, and his gestation and weaning [period] is thirty months.”
Critics pair this with Qur’an 2:233, which gives the weaning period as two years (24 months), and conclude that 30 − 24 = 6 months for gestation — calling this a scientific error.
But this is a misreading. The six-month period was never presented as a universal biological norm. Instead, it is a legal minimum, affirmed within Islamic jurisprudence. Ali ibn Abi Talib (رضي الله عنه) applied this interpretation in a legal case involving a woman from the tribe of Juhaynah who gave birth six months into her marriage. When she was accused of zina, Ali (رضي الله عنه) cited this verse alongside Qur’an 2:233 to establish the pregnancy as valid. The caliph Uthman ibn Affan (رضي الله عنه) accepted the reasoning and halted the punishment.
This case is preserved in the tafsir of As-Suyuti in Ad-Durr al-Manthur (Tafsir) and is also affirmed by Ibn Kathir in his Tafsir. It exemplifies the principle of Qur’an explains Qur’an, a method of interpreting the Qur’an via its own internal coherence, a key principle in usul al-tafsir.
Furthermore, this issue illustrates the Qur’an’s use of intertextual coherence. The notion that Qur’anic verses explain each other is not merely rhetorical — it’s hermeneutically binding. Another verse, Qur’an 22:5, clarifies that gestation varies: “We settle in the wombs whatever We will for a specified term.”
Modern science also affirms this flexibility. According to the CDC and ACOG, preterm infants as early as 23–28 weeks (about six months) can survive with neonatal care. The Qur’an’s mention of this duration is thus both medically and jurisprudentially sound — far from being an error, it’s a sign of its precision.
In Usul al-Fiqh, this verse was historically used not just for moral reflection, but for legal reasoning. It demonstrates how early scholars and companions applied divine text to real-world judgments — a process grounded in legal hermeneutics, not scientific miscalculation.
“Do they not reflect upon the Qur’an, or are there locks upon their hearts?” — Qur’an 47:24