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This editorial will explore two closely related questions: what is life? and when does it start?. The framing of these questions assumes a spectrum or continuum from non-life to life. It was not until the synthesis of urea that biologists could be certain that organic material can be derived from non-organic material, both non-living. Science has not yet made the jump from organic material to life. The motivation to define life and its start is not of academic interest to explore a biological spectrum, it is associated with crucial decision with serious moral implications in modern technology-driven medicine. Despite detailed studies of anatomy and physiology, there is no one unanimous definition of human life. All organisms on earth are closely related anatomically, physiologically, and biochemically. Although humans have chemical and physiological similarities to other organisms especially at the DNA level, human life is not the same as animal life. A purely materialist conceptualization of life runs into practical problems when we see that a human has feelings, thoughts, emotions, and innate drives that cannot be explained in terms of cellular function or chemical reactions. Life is a complex phenomenon with biological, chemical, and spiritual components. Human life is a unique combination of biology, chemistry, physics, chemistry, matter, energy, and spirit. All of us agree when we see a living thing that it is alive when it is breathing, moving, and eating. There are several situations that are borderline and require a clear definition. Life can not be defined simply as the opposite of death. It must be definable on its own. Life can be defined biologically, chemically, legally, and spiritually. It is not surprising that there is no one single definition of life; life is complex and its definition must be complex. Both life and death are earthly events[i]. Life exists in the hereafter; but death does not. Humans share biological life with plants and animals. They share spiritual life with angels. No other creation of Allah resembles humans in having physical and spiritual life at the same time.
The biological definition of life is not straightforward. Phenomena of death occur on a continuous basis. On a daily basis cells die and are replaced. Some organs can die while the rest of the organism is still living. Even in situations in which the whole organism is considered dead by ordinary criteria, some parts of it could maintain manifestations of life for a long time. Organs of dead persons stay alive for a long time in transplantees. Human cells have been maintained in long-term culture for decades. There are several biological phenomena that are synonymous with life: metabolism, excretion, reproduction, growth and development, innate purpose action, response to the environment, and change. The problem is that these phenomena are found in plants and animals. They are also found in isolated tissue, cells, and sub-cellular structures.
One of the signs of life is dynamic change and cyclicity. Growth and development are followed by degeneration and death. The elements that make up the human body are recycled. The degenerate cells and tissues whether in life or after death break up and become part of the earth. They are later incorporated into new cells as food, water or air that is breathed in.
BIO-CHEMICAL LIFE
Life could also be defined in chemical terms as a series of chemical reactions in metabolism. These reactions are not much different from inorganic reactions that occur between elements. The reactions associated with life are self-initiated, purposive and coordinated with one another because they are under control by DNA, a hereditary material that stays fairly constant over the life span. Viruses make a very fine line between life and death. They also make a fine distinction between the organic and the inorganic. They have some properties of what are normally living things. They however cannot carry out the whole range of metabolic processes associated with life and must be obligate parasites. Viruses can not on their own manufacture all the proteins they need. Viruses also have properties of non-living things like crystallization.
BIO-PHYSICAL LIFE
Living things have the ability of transforming one form of energy into another. This energy tranduction occurs among light, heat, chemical, and electric energy. There could be other forms of energy related to life that we do not yet know.
GENETIC LIFE
This defines life in the form of DNA-controlled replication
THERMODYNAMIC LIFE
The second Law of thermodynamics states that in a closed system, net order cannot increase. It means that there is a tendency to disorder. The human organism has a tendency to increase the order of its internal organization and function but at the expense of increasing disorder to the external environment. The human organism is not a closed system. It is open to interact with the external world.
SPIRITUAL LIFE
Life can also be defined in spiritual terms. Life without any spirituality is not a full human life but is a life of animals. Spiritual death could occur without biological death. Spiritual diseases could transform a human to be at the level of animals or even worse[ii].
EXTRATERRESTRIAL LIFE
Humans have been curious over centuries whether there are other humans outside the earth. So far there is no scientific proof that biological life exists outside the earth. Lack of evidence here means that exploration has so far been limited. The possibility of such life is suggested by various pieces of evidence. The planets seem to have elements like those on earth. On grounds of probability, it is curious that biological life is found only on one of the smallest planets and on none of all the thousands of planets in our galaxy and other galaxies. We also know from scriptures that there is extra-terrestrial life in heaven and hell however its physical location is not known. The scriptures mention both humans and non-humans as living extraterrestrially.
B. LEVELS OF LIFE
Life can be described at various levels: the level of the ruh, the level of the whole living organism, the level of the organ, the level of the tissue, the level of the cell, the level of sub-cellular structures, the level of the molecule, and the level of the atom. The highest level is that of the ruh about which we know very little[iii]. We however know that the ruh is the essence of human life and that it is eternal. Humans share with animals the biological nature of life but they have the ruh in addition which makes them special. The Qur'an mentions insertion of the ruh in case of Isa (PBUH)[iv]. The ruh is inserted in the fetus during intra-uterine life to give it human life, nafakh al ruh[v]. The body without the ruh has lost all the essence of a human being. On burial most of the human body decomposes and disappears within a short time and only bones persist for a longer time and they eventually also disappear. The Qur'an has mentioned the bones as a challenge to the unbelievers that He can indeed bring them back to life[vi].
The main functions of blood circulation, respiration, nutrition, and metabolism require cooperation of various organs and tissue of the organism. The various organs of the body have a life and an individuality of their own and will bear witness against the human shahadat al a'adha[vii]. The cell is a basic unit of life. All life's complex functions and properties can be subsumed in the cell. Unicellular organisms are the simplest forms of life. Generally individual sub-cellular structures are not considered to have life if seen in isolation.
C. START OF LIFE
ADAM AND HAWA
Human life started with the stage of ruh when Allah took the covenant 'ahad al laah ila al bashar[viii]. This was life at a spiritual level. It became life in a material form with the creation of Adam and his wife Hawa in a physical form from the elements of the earth. They were created from clay and became full perfect humans when the ruh was inserted into them. Biologically the offspring of Adam and Hawa have continued transmitting the original biological material in the form of DNA all down the centuries from parent to offspring. The act of creation is repeated every time there is conception when maternal and paternal DNAs combine to give rise to the fetal DNA. The semi-conservative replication of DNA ensures that some atoms from the previous generation are part of the DNA of the next generation. The act of creation is completed by insertion of the ruh during intra-uterine life. In a biological sense the continuity of life has not been interrupted from the time of Adam. There is therefore an unbroken continuity that makes it pointless to try to define the exact moment when human life on earth is considered to start because of the concept of the continuum above.
MOTIVATION TO DEFINE START OF LIFE IN UTERO:
The motivation to delineate the beginning of life is of practical materialistic and not academic or spiritual interest. Defining an exact moment in the intra-uterine phase for the start of life has legal implications in cases of contraception, abortion, inheritance, and homicide. We have to be careful about debates on the start of life. We need to ask ourselves what is the purpose behind the debates? There are social problems of an ethical nature that people want to solve by defining the start of life. The interest is therefore not only legal but is also ethical and moral. Once the point of start of life has been defined, then it is possible to legalize any medical procedures involving feticide provided they are done before the defined time. The main motivation for defining the start of life is to find is to escape moral and social dilemmas. Islamic law and teachings provide adequate measures for preventing these dilemmas rather than wait for them to occur and escape their consequences by abortion or feticide.
LEGAL CONSEQUENCES OF DEFINING START OF LIFE IN UTERO
Trauma or any other man-made cause of fetal death would be considered homicide only if it occurred after the defined start of life. Abortion before the defined start of life in utero would be considered legal. In a similar way, a fetus would have rights of inheritance from the father if the father died after the period of the defined start of life. The Islamic position is that life existed before and beyond conception. Feticide is committed in societies that want to allow sexual promiscuity unaccompanied by the responsibilities of child-bearing. Any aggression to the body of a pregnant woman is to be punished and should not be related to the life or non-life of the fetus. It is justice that any offspring of the deceased inherit to be able to have physical support.
D. STAGES OF LIFE
Biological life can be looked at in three stages: pre-uterine, uterine, the post-uterine phases. The post-uterine phase has in return got two stages: life on earth, hayat al duniyat, and life in the hereafter, hayat al akhirat. The Qur'an has mentioned two lives and 2 deaths[ix]. The biological interpretation of this verse is still a challenge. The two lives could be life on earth on earth and life in the hereafter. We know of only one death on earth. Allah knows best what the other death is. Life on earth is described as enjoyment, hayat al duniya matau[x]. Humans have a blind love for life on earth and its enjoyment[xi]. Life in the hereafter starts with resurrection[xii]. As far as we know human life exists only on our planet. The possibility of human life on other planets is possible and was referred to indirectly by the Qur’an[xiii]. The details will have to be unraveled by scientific research
E. OWNERSHIP OF LIFE
Life belongs to Allah and not the human[xiv]. Allah gives and takes away life[xv]. Humans do not own their life but are temporary custodians of life enjoined to take good care of it. Humans have no control over life or death[xvi]. Death and life are in Allah’s hands[xvii]. Humans therefore have no right to destroy their life or that of any other human. Doing so is one of the greatest transgressions.
Muslims are challenged to research fundmanetals iossues pof life. The key to a clear definition of life lies in defining its start because at that point we can delineate characteirsitcs that make life from those that do ntot. Muslims have not studied the issues of the start of life well. The aim of such research should be detailed understanding of early life and not defining the exact moment of its start. Study of sub-cellular structures may reveal new relations and explanations. Such studies also will clarify the boundary between the inorganic and organic parts of the body and the relation between life and the organic. The boundary between the world of the seen, alam al shahadat, and the world of the unseen, aalam al ghaib, needs to be elucidated in biological systems.
NOTES
NOTES
[i] ()
[ii] (7:179)
[iii] (17:85)
[iv] (p515 4:171, 31:91, 66:12)
[v] (p516 , 32:9, 38:72, p 1249 , 21:91, 32:9, 38:72, 66:12)
[vi] (p281 17:49, 17:98, 23:35, 23:82, 37: 16, 37:53, 56:47, 75:3, 79:11)
[vii] (p230 24:24)
[viii] (p852 7:172-173, 36:60)
[ix] (40:11)
[x] (p430 3:14, 3:185, 4:77, 6:32, 7:32, 9:38, 9:69, 10:23-24, 10:70, 10:98, 11:15, 13:62, 20:131, 23:33, 28:60-61, 28:77, 29:64, 33:28, 40:49, 42:20, 42:36, 43:32, 43:35, 46:20, 47:36, 57:20)
[xi] (p382 2:96)
[xii] (p 19 6:6:36, 7:29, 7:57, 10:4, 10:34, 11:7, 16:38, 17:49-52, 17:99, 18:48, 21:104, 22:7, 23:100, 28:85, 29:19-20, 30:11, 30:25-27, 30:50, 30:56, 31:28, 32:10-11, 34:7, 36:12, 36:32-36, 36:51-52, 36:27-83, 37:16-21, 46:33, 56:47-50, 58:6, 71:3-4, 83:4-6, 86:8-10)
[xiii] (42:29)
[xiv] (p382 3:156, 7:158, 8:42, 15:23, 23:80, 30:40, 4);11, 40:68, 45:26, 50:43, 53:44, 57:2, 67:3)
[xv] (2:96, 3:156, 7:25, 7:158, 15:23, 23:80, 30:40, 40:43, 40:68, 45:26, 50:43, 44:53:44, 57:2, 67:2)
[xvi] (25:3)
[xvii] (p382 25:3)