The Universe and the Womb: Generation, Conception, and the Stars in Islamic Medieval Astrological and Medical Texts

This article looks at the assimilation of Aristotle’s account of ‘coming-to-be’ into conception theories found in Islamic medieval medical and astrological texts. It analyzes the way the four causes work on the level of the universe and that of the womb, and examines the reconciliation of ideas on planetary influence with the Galenic and Aristotelian theories of conception. The Arabic astrological theories that explain the receptiveness of human beings to astral influences provide the conceptual link between the macrocosmic and microcosmic processes. Conception becomes an individualization of the coming-to-be of species, and the stars act as agents of actuality in both processes.

To investigate this macro-micro link, the first part discusses the Aristotelian theories of generation and links them with Aristotle's own conception theory and those of Hippocrates, Galen, and Ibn Sīnā (980-1037).The second part then examines embryology and conception in the context of astrology, looking primarily at the Rasāʾil of Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ (The Epistles of the Brethren of Purity, tenth century), Abū Maʿšar al- Balḫī's (787-886) Kitāb al-madḫal al-kabīr ilā ʿilm aḥkām al-nuǧūm ('The Great Introduction to the Judgements of the Stars'), Pseudo-Apollonius' Sirr al-ḫalīqa ('The Secret of Creation') and Ḫalq al-ǧanīn wa-tadbīr al-ḥabālā wa'l-mawlūdīn ('The Creation of the Fetus and the Management of Pregnant Women and Newborns') by ʿArīb ibn Saʿd al-Qurṭubī, the secretary of the Caliph al-Ḥakam II (r.961-976).

Generation and Conception in Ancient Authorities
Aristotle defines generation as an unqualified coming-to-be of a substance (coming-to-be simpliciter). 2Qualification determines the nature of an object.He explains, "in one sense, things come-to-be out of that which has no being without qualification; yet in another sense they come-to-be always out of what is.For there must pre-exist something which potentially is, but actually is not; and this something is spoken of both as being and as notbeing". 3In the first sense, things are identified by negation (not white, not round, etc.) whereas in the second sense they are recognized by what they potentially can be but not actually are.Coming-to-be is a change from potential substance to actual; and there are two kinds of substances: primary substances are those that cannot be predicated of another thing (Socrates), and secondary substances are universal and can be predicated (Man). 4ctualization results from the participation of the four causes in the process of generation: the material, the formal, the efficient, and the final.Matter (ὕλη) "is to be identified with the substratum which is receptive of coming-to-be and passing away". 5The four couplings of elements: hot dry, hot moist, cold dry, cold moist, attach themselves to the "simple" bodies of Fire, Water, Earth, and Air. 6These bodies themselves come-to-be, and they change into one another in a process of conversion which is cyclical, perpetually creating the bodies of all things. 7A substance is a compound of matter shaped by form (μορφή); every sensible thing consists of both.Form is the active component that Aristotle does not see to exist abstractly from matter, the potential component.The efficient cause which leads to the emergence of the substance is a continuous motion, rendering comingto-be a cyclical process. 8The motion of the whole (primary motion) does not generate but the motion along the inclined circle does (the region about the center-between eternal and 2 Aristotle, 'Generation and Corruption ', in ARISTOTLE [1984]: 317b14.3 Ibid.: 317b15-18.4 Ibid.: 320a11-320b34.   5 Ibid.: 320a1-2.6 Ibid.: 330a3-330b5.7 Ibid.: 330b24, 331a7-16, 331a3-4, 335a22.8 Ibid.: 336a15-336b4.mortal, between primary motion and individual motion, between God and Earth). 9It is a motion that possesses the necessary continuity and duality of motion so that coming-to-be and passing-away can occur.Therefore, it is not singular since these two processes are contrary, needing a duality of motion.This motion is instigated, however, by the motion of the whole. 10Aristotle here is addressing universal coming-to-be: "God therefore adopted the remaining alternative, and fulfilled the perfection of the universe by making coming-tobe uninterrupted; for the greatest possible coherence would thus be secured to existence, because that 'coming-to-be should itself come-to-be perpetually' is the closest approximation to eternal being." 11Thus, perpetual motion and cyclical material conversion create a "readiness" that God utilizes for the creation of species.
Aristotle's seeming inconsistency regarding the identification of the substantial form as species or individuals puzzled and divided his interpreters.It is not the concern of this section to resolve this problem; however, Aristotle's conception theory, as found particularly in the Generation of Animals, is helpful as it is concerned with the coming-tobe of individuals in the strict sense.The text begins with the exposition of the four causes. 12According to Aristotle, both the male and the female are "origins/principles of generation" (τής γενέσεως ἀρχάς).The male semen is the efficient cause and the female menstrual blood is the material cause. 13The male semen acts as an efficient cause by imparting motion, though it does not at all partake in the material composition of the fetus.In addition, the male semen gives soul and vital heat, leading to the actualization of the generation of the fetus.Aristotle implies that the male semen is of a divine nature unlike the menstrual blood which is akin to primitive matter. 14The union of the male semen and menstrual blood is the beginning of the embryo: an individual generation of substance. 15hat follows is alteration and growth.In On Generation and Corruption, the former is defined as a change in quality and the former in magnitude.An embryo is thus a primary substance which proceeds to receive qualification through alteration-the emergence of organs, bones, limbs etc.-and then experiences growth. 16This process began as a result of the readiness of the principle of actualisation and motion (semen) and the material principle (menstrual blood), parallel to the readiness of the universe to generate due to perpetual motion and material conversions.
Galen famously contested Aristotle's theory of conception, rejecting the assignation of efficient causality exclusively to the male principle, and material causality to the female principle.According to Aristotle, "it is not necessary that anything at all should come away from the male, and if anything does come away it does not follow that this gives rise to the embryo as being in the embryo, but only as that which imparts the motion and as the 9 Ibid.: 335a25.10 Ibid.: 336a24-336b4.
12 'Generation of Animals ', ibid.: 715a1-16.13 Ibid.: 728b22.14 Ibid.: 729a 32-33, 736b29-737a1, 737a9-10.15 Ibid.: 728b32-35.16 'Generation and Corruption', ibid.: 320a11-320b34, 320b26-321a9 and 321b.form". 17Galen, however, argues that the male semen does in fact contribute to the matter of the embryo; it remains in the uterus physically and forms the membrane which holds together the embryo; 18 a view established by Hippocrates in the Nature of the Child. 19This viscous and thick membrane gets attached to the mouths of the uterus vessels as a result of the womb's contraction.Moreover, veins, arteries and nerves are generated from the male semen. 20Galen, following Hippocrates, also contests Aristotle's denial of the existence of female semen and rejects his reduction of the female principle of generation to menstrual blood as a purely material cause.The male semen, when it falls on the fundus of the uterus, has an irregular shape unable to coat the entire uterus, "nature coats it with a second semen, that of the female" that is produced from a spermatic vessel which takes its start and is attached to "the testicles of the female": 21 When, therefore, the female produces semen at the same time as the male, the semen discharged through each of the two horns and carried to the middle of the hollow of the uterus coats the passages and at the same time reaches the male semen.It mixes with the semen, and the membranes are entwined with each other […] the female semen provides this service for the fetus and becomes, as it were, a kind of nutriment for the semen of the male; for it is thinner than the male semen, colder, and more suitable than all else for nourishment. 22us for Galen the female and the male both contribute matter and power; semen (male and female) is not only an efficient cause but also material; and since the embryo draws blood and pneuma from the menstrual blood, it is not only a material cause but also a kind of efficient power. 23He accedes, however, that "both the semen and the menstrual blood have both principles, but not with matching strength, the semen having the strongest active principle but a very small amount of the material principle, whereas in the blood the material principle is most abundant and the dynamic very weak.' 24 The Galenic-Aristotelian polemic notwithstanding, the universal causes of generation, form, matter, and motion, are paralleled in the conception of the fetus.According to Aristotle, these are the universal counterparts, respectively, of the male semen, menstrual blood, and motion of the semen.To Galen, the material cause is a combinatory contribution of male semen (embryo's membrane), female semen (similar to the amnion), and the menstrual blood.The actualizing principles (motion and soul) are derived from both the semen and the menstrual blood.Aristotle, as an epigenist 25 perceived that the alteration in 17 'Generation of Animals ', ibid.: 729b9-21.18 GALEN [1992]: 75-7.
25 That is of the belief that the formation of the fetus's parts and organs do not develop from pre-existing forms but are actualized gradually and internally.
the quality of the fetal substance gradually develops the specific form of the individuals.The individualization, then, of the substantial form is an internal, physical and biological process of alteration and growth that takes place in the womb: "for the end is developed last, and the peculiar character of the species is the end of generation in each individual". 26bn Sīnā revises the Galenic and Hippocratic conviction that both men and women produce semen and Aristotle's belief that menstrual blood is the only female generative principle.In his discussion on the generation of animals, Ibn Sīnā explains that both men and women have generative principles that are commonly given the name "semen".However, only the male principle can really be called semen, and the female principle is a moisture that "is closer to the essence of men's semen than the rest of the menses", and it aids the motion of semen essential for conception. 27The male semen contains the generating power (quwwa muwallida) and the female "semen" has a reproductive power (quwwa mutawallida). 28The first power imparts form (muṣawwira), and the second power is form-accepting (mutaṣawwira). 29The body of the semen itself disperses because it imparts form qualitatively, whereas the female power functions materially and quantitatively. 30The union of the seminal form and moisture is the beginning of conception, after which the menstrual blood provides the body of the embryo and proceeds to nourish it.
As Aristotle, Ibn Sīnā's biological exposition of the development of the fetus can be correlated with his own metaphysics.The difference between the generating power of male semen and the reproductive power of female moisture can be understood in terms of Ibn Sīnā's concepts of subject (mawḍūʿ) and receptacle (maḥall 31 ).The subject is "that which becomes subsistent in itself and, in terms of being the species, becomes thereafter a cause for something to subsist in it ([but] not as part of it)". 32This is applicable to the power of male semen whereby form is imparted only, without any actual material contribution, determining the species of the embryo.Ibn Sīnā refers to the function of the sperm in his metaphysical discourse to demonstrate the relationship between the subject and the receptacle: "As for the father, he is the cause for the movement of the sperm.The motion of the sperm, in the above mentioned way, is a cause of the occurrence of the sperm in the womb.Its occurrence in the womb is then a cause for something.As for its becoming formed as an animal and its continuity as animal, [this] has another cause.If this, then, is the case, then every cause coexists with its effect". 33This simultaneously reciprocating cause is the receptacle which "is anything in which something dwells 31 Lit., 'locale, locality, location, locus, place, position'.In the context of Avicenna this "place" is one that can be filled and occupied, hence "receptacle".
When the form is accepted by female moisture, a readiness for actualization is established which is followed by substantiation.For Aristotle, the form in the male semen is transferred into the menstrual blood, rather than female moisture, after which the body of the semen disperses.But according to Ibn Sīnā, corporeal form cannot exist separated from matter. 35Thus it is an adherence to this rule, that a form-accepting material (moisture) which has received form through union with the form-giving semen is then nourished by menstrual blood.Even though the body of the semen is shed away after this coagulation, materialisation remains uninterrupted.As for the soul, according to Ibn Sīnā it is the male semen that imparts it to the fetus. 36rom this survey of generation and conception theories, we note that though Aristotle himself did not fully explain how the universal process of generating substances and the coming-to-be of species particularizes into the generation of an individual in the womb, his discussion of conception, and those of Galen and Ibn Sīnā revolved around causality, actuality, and motion.They applied metaphysical and universal notions pertaining to generation to the biological process of conception.However, it is in astrological texts and medical works that incorporated astrological theories that we find a clear articulation of the link between the macrocosm and the microcosm, between universal generation and conception.In these texts, the stars are the actualizing principles of the generation of species and individuals.

The Stars
In On Generation and Corruption, Aristotle asserts that the male and the female "are first principles of generation.For by a male animal we mean that which generates in another, and by a female that which generates in itself; that is why in the macrocosm also, men think of the earth as female and a mother, but address the heaven and the sun and other like entities as progenitors and fathers". 37He also ascribes a divine nature to the efficacy of the male semen for imbuing the embryo with soul. 38Aristotle explains that the vital heat imparted by the male semen to the embryo "is the breath included in the semen and the foam-like, and the natural principle in the breath, being analogous to the elements of the stars". 39With this, in addition to associating material passivity with femaleness and formal actuality with maleness, Aristotle hints at the parallel between the macrocosmic process of generation and the microcosmic process of conception.
Matter is receptive, passive, and feminine-as the earth-characterizing the generated and corruptible world; efficiency is masculine, incorruptible, and divine-as the heaven.In On Generation and Corruption, Physics, and Meteorology Aristotle sees the circular motion of the celestial spheres as the efficient cause of the generation of species and 35 IBN SĪNĀ [2005] considers it responsible for the transformation and alteration of the elements and simple bodies. 40However, celestial efficient causality is more fully explicated in Arabic early medieval texts on astrology such as those of Abū Maʿšar al-Balḫī.This is demonstrated on three levels: the role of the stars in generation and corruption, their role in conception, and, finally, their impact on the development of the fetus.
Abū Maʿšar al-Balḫī explains in his Kitāb al-madḫal al-kabīr that the heat from the motion of the celestial spheres constitutes the efficient cause that specifically unites form and matter, body and soul. 41Astral influences determine both primary and secondary substances, that is, the individual and the species.In contrast, Aristotle, as we have seen, considers the individualization of the substantial form as strictly internal and biological.Concerning the human individual, Abū Maʿšar posits that, in addition to the material cause which is responsible for the elementary composition and humoral inclinations of an individual, and the formal cause which determines 'humanness', 42 there are astral causes: As for that which is affected in him due to the powers of the motions of the planets-by permission of God-that is not related to the elements or form, it is manifest and it is [determined by] their [the planets'] significations over the particularity of his genus and individuality among the rest of the genera and individuals; and [it is determined by] their significations over the composition of all natural things, the commixing of the form and elements in elemented things, the harmony between the animal and rational souls with the body, and other things like beauty and ugliness, height and shortness, maleness and femaleness, colors, motions, bravery and cowardice, good behavior, fatness and slimness, abrasiveness and softness. 43ū Maʿšar argues that the planets collaborate in the process of generation and thus establish a causal and semiological connection with the humors, organs and the properties of minerals, plants and animals.Consequently, the planets influence "the emergence of a human from seed". 44In his De radiis, Yaʿqūb ibn Isḥāq al-Kindī, philosopher and contemporary of Abū Maʿšar, accepts that the diversity of species and members is determined by the diversity of astral rays.In the generated world, al-Kindī writes, the formed matter of the seed changes into the formed matter of the barley.The variations of individualistic characteristics are determined by the variation in aspect, direction, time, and place of the rays. 45This is an epigenic stance which accepts an external factor (stars) acting on formation rather than it being an exclusively internal and biological process, as Aristotle posits.
As a result of astral causality in the generation of individuals, conditions of conception and the nature of the conceived often have astrological indications.For example, in a section concerned with the astrological houses, Abū Maʿšar explains that the first house, which is the ascendant, incorporates the properties of Saturn because it is the highest and first of the seven planets.So, this house has signification over darkness, conception, and "over bodies as long as they are inside the womb". 46In a chapter on the properties of planets, we are informed that Mars signifies "the motion that is before the time of women's delivery" in addition to abortion and difficult pregnancies. 47Astrological-Hermetic lots (sahm/suhūm) also influence the development of the fetus; for example, it is in the lot of "female progeny" that one may discover the sex.If it falls in a masculine sign, it is male; if in a feminine sign, it is female. 48Moreover, the lot of "steadiness and continuity" indicates the appearance of the fetus and its parental resemblance. 49These do not only demonstrate the semiological link between the planets and the fetus, but they are also justified by the causal role the planets have in generation and conception.
The most explicit and elaborate expression of the interconnection between universal generation and conception, however, is found in pseudo-Apollonius' Sirr al-ḫalīqa ('The Secret of Creation').It contains sections that correspond with late ancient texts such as the Syriac Book of Treasures (Kitāb al-ḏaḫāʾir) of Job of Edessa (Ayyūb al-Ruhāwī, d. 835), De natura hominis (Kitāb fī ṭabīʿat al-insān) by Nemesius of Emesa, and the Hermetic Istimāṭīs.The date of this text has been a matter of speculation, but Ursula Weisser suggests that a short version was translated from Greek as early as the eighth century. 50irr al-ḫalīqa elucidates the concept of nuṭfa (seed, semen) at the macrocosmic and microcosmic levels.The nuṭfa is the substantial inception of everything; the first physical reality that leads to the full materialization and actualization of the generated.Everything, primary or secondary, begins from a nuṭfa.On a universal level: Everything is from the four natures: heat, cold, moisture, and dryness; the natures are in all things; things are connected to them; and they are connected to each other.They all turn in a single cycle, encompassed by a single system in which one sphere turns.The highest among them are connected to the lowest, and the nearest among them are connected to the most remote, because they are all from one essence-one nuṭfa-having in common one nature with no variation in them until accidents predicate them. 51e author explains that the motion of the celestial sphere is the active and efficient cause of the generation of all minerals, plants, and animals and their composition. 52The elements, 46 al-BALḪĪ [1995-96] on the other hand, are 'mothers' (ummahāt): passive and receptive. 53However, he differentiates between primary composition (al-tarkīb al-awwal) whereby species are generated on the universal level, and secondary composition whereby individuals are produced on the terrestrial level.When the sphere moves and revolves "the thick" mixes with "the subtle" and the four natures are produced.On their own they are weak and so through the same motion they join and, as a result, the four elements and the three genitura (mawālīd: minerals, plants, and animals) emerge whose species are determined by the astral cause. 54As this is a primary archetypal process, it cannot be repeated and so members are generated from their species through a secondary process. 55In a crucial passage the author explains: And an example of this is Man, who is the small world, similar to the big world.For he came-to-be first from the [four] natures, and since this [primary] composition is over and this process has passed, [now] a human cannot be generated except from [another] human.And so a human is generated from the nuṭfa of [another] human.It is a small nuṭfa containing many powers, and so many people emerge from it as he [the first Man] first emerged from the natures, I mean by this the [primary] composition. 56llowing Hippocrates and Galen, rather than Aristotle, pseudo-Apollonius accepts the existence of the female semen.The meeting of 'the thick' and 'the subtle' that leads to the emergence of the universal nuṭfa is reflected in the womb by the meeting of the thick and viscous male semen and the thin female semen. 57The essence of the female semen is like that of male semen but different in velocity and complexion; they also contribute equally to imparting form and shape.According to pseudo-Apollonius, "the wombs of women are their penises having been reversed". 58nother important discussion of conception and its relation to universal generation is found in Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ's epistle on conception (Masqaṭ al-nuṭfa).It begins with declaring that the celestial world is the efficient cause of all generation, particularly the Universal Soul-a Neoplatonizing gesture.At the time of conception, the Universal Soul pours into the embryo a particular soul; 59 hence they disagree with Aristotle who insists that the soul or the vital principle of the embryo cannot be external and is given only by the male semen.However, the Iḫwān seem to consider the female generative principle to be only menstrual blood rather than a second type of semen, thus conforming to the Aristotelian theory of conception in this aspect. 60 Ibid.: 532-3.According to the Iḫwān, the four elements constitute the formal and material causes.
Here too the elements are referred to as mothers. 61Generation is likened to the process of making butter; "it is like milk in a container and the motion of the spheres is the churner and the resulting creatures are the butter". 62This is based on the milk allegory used by Aristotle to illustrate the function of the male semen in conception: What the male contributes to generation is the form and the efficient cause, while the female contributes the material.In fact, as the coagulation of milk, the milk being the material, the fig-juice or rennet is that which contains the curdling principle, so acts the secretion of the male, being divided into the parts in the female [...] the female does not contribute semen to generation, but does contribute something, and that this is the matter of the menstrual flow, or that which is analogous to it in bloodless animals, is clear from what has been said. 63is is the same metaphor Galen also refers to in order to demonstrate that male semen contributes to the materiality of the embryo.He declares the folly of the Peripatetics who hold the opinion that the male semen in conception imparts only motion and the psychic principle and is then ejected. 64The body of the semen cannot be expelled, in the same way that fig-juice or rennet does not evaporate when it curdles the milk. 65The Iḫwān, thus, use the milk allegory found in the context of conception and extend it to the universal process of generation, thus equating the efficiency of the male semen to that of astral influences.
The milk allegory is reiterated in Ġāyat al-ḥakīm ('The Goal of the Wise'), a text on magic known in the Latin tradition as the Picatrix by Maslama al- Qurṭubī (d.964) and greatly influenced by the Epistles. 66The milk allegory and the coagulation of blood and semen are used as part of the author's metaphysical interjections which assert that the sympathies and connections among everything are the result of astral causation.Al-Qurṭubī, like Aristotle and the Iḫwān, considers the principles of generation to be blood and male semen.He aligns himself with the Peripatetics, criticized above by Galen, and writes: And know, may God illuminate your perception, that the organs whereby reproduction occurs are two.One gives the matter that makes up the animal to whom this power belongs, and the other gives the form of the species and motion to matter, until the form is completed by it [motion].For the power that gives matter is 61 IḪWĀN AL-ṢAFĀʾ [2008], ii: 417, 419.[2008], ii: 419.
66 FIERRO [1996] the power of the female, and that which gives the form is the male power […] when semen arrives into the womb and there encounters blood prepared by the womb to accept human form, this semen gives this blood a power whereby it moves, until the organs of the human, the form of every organ, and generally the human form, emerge from this blood.For the blood prepared in the womb is the matter of the human and the semen is this matter's mover until form emerges in it.The action of the semen on the blood is the [same] action [as] rennet that coagulates milk.Rennet is the cause of the coagulation but itself is not part of that which is coagulated or matter.So is semen, it is not part of that which is coagulated in the womb or matter, and the fetus comes-to-be from semen the way curd comes-to-be from rennet […]  know that this maleness (ḏukūriyya) is the efficient cause of plants and animals. 67is is preceded by a discussion of love and desire, with an allusion to their astrological determiners which have an impact on the potency of semen. 68ike Galen and Ibn Sīnā, the theories of Abū Ma ͑ šar, pseudo-Apollonius, and the Iḫwān are founded on Aristotelian notions of causality, motion, and actuality.They argue that astral causation actualizes generation in the universe and conception in the womb; the former process presented as a continuation of the latter.However, this is not the only way in which the stars and planets are incorporated in theories of conception.The development of the embryo itself is regulated by them.
The traditional stages of the formation/gestation of the individual are described by Galen: 1) The female and male semens mix."Hippocrates the all-marvelous" does not consider it a fetus but a semen.2) It is filled with blood.The heart, brain and liver are still unarticulated and unshaped.
The fetus has by now a certain solidity and considerable size.The substance of the fetus has the form of flesh and no longer the form of semen. 693) It is possible to see the three ruling parts more clearly, that of the stomach more dimly, and much more still that of the limbs.Later on they emerge as "twigs", as Hippocrates calls them. 70Flesh grows and fattens.Bones are generated from drying heat. 714) All the parts and the limbs are differentiated, becoming a child. 72Here Hippocrates treats it as animal but Galen follows Aristotle and believes the fetus receives a nutritive soul before the sensitive and/or rational. 73The fetus first of all receives the vegetative power. 74or Ibn Sīnā, the fetus begins as a nuṭfa (the coagulation of female moisture and male semen) which develops into a ʿalaqa (blood-clot) when the embryo is nourished by blood after it attaches itself to the veins of the womb.Then it is enfleshed becoming a muḍġa, and after this stage the organs are formed and the limbs stretch out. 75The significance of this description is not merely obstetric.It interprets a mysterious passage in the Qur'ān: We created man from the essence of clay (sulāla min ṭīn), then made him a sperm (nuṭfa) in a well-guarded cavity (qarār makīn), the sperm We turned into a blood clot (ʿalaqa), the blood clot into a morsel (muḍġa), the morsel into bones, the bones We clothed with flesh, and then We reared him into another creation, Blessed in God, the most excellent of Creators! 76 The Qur'ānic terminology and description of gestation become standard in medical work, elucidating the harmony between the macrocosm and the microcosm and between revelation and science. 77For example, in his Firdaws al-ḥikma ('Paradise of Wisdom') the physician Abū 'l-Ḥasan ʿAlī ibn Sahl Rabban al-Ṭabarī (838-870) writes that in the first 16 days of conception the fetal substance is a froth and after 14 days it becomes a ʿalaqa (blood clot), and in 26 days it turns into a muḍġa.This is also followed by a description of man as microcosm. 78stral influences were introduced to the stages of gestation, and perhaps the earliest text to do so in medieval Islam is Sirr al-ḫalīqa.Each stage in the development of the fetus comes under the activity of a specific planet, following the order of the celestial spheres.When the female and male semens mix, the nuṭfa is still and comes under the activity of Saturn because it is cold and dry, and it is the slowest, and coldest of planets.The nuṭfa stays still for an hour then it undergoes putrefaction (ta ͑ fīn); the heat of putrefaction renders it yellowish; this happens in seven days, going through the influence of all the seven planets.After which it reddens and becomes ʿalaqa (blood clot, leech-like) and is strengthened by nourishing blood for 30 days.It is enfleshed by this process which lasts for 60 days under the influence of Jupiter. 79It is at this stage that the head, eyes, nose, mouth, ears and hair are formed. 80In the next 90 days, the human form is completed and strengthened under the rule of Mars because of its intense heat.Then the Sun takes over and life becomes manifest externally, and this happens over 120 days after which the fetus falls under Venus and the bones begin to harden, veins appear, flesh, fat, and skin grow.It remains under the influence of Venus for 150 days. 81For the next 180 days, Mercury 75 IBN SĪNĀ [n.d.]: 166-72.76 The Qur'ān [2008], xxiii: 12-17.77 MUSALLAM 1990: 32-46; TOELLE 2003: 367-81, 371.-Toelle highlights all Qur'anic references to the creation of Man and proposes, inconclusively, Ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian mythical origins.For example, she relates the assignation of passivity to the female earth and activity to the male māʾ (meaning both rain and semen in the Qur'ān) to the Ancient Egyptian myth of the creation of Shu and Tefnut from the semen of Atum.increases the movement of the fetus. 82Then, in the seventh month, it falls under the Moon: the fat is whitened, the flesh is reddened and blood flows into all the parts of the body.The eighth month is particularly perilous because the fetus is now under the rule of Saturn again; it is still and cold as the planet and so if it is born in this month it will likely die.The ninth month belongs to Jupiter and the baby now is nurtured and complete, being under its benefic influences. 83ḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ also illustrate the stages of gestation.In the first stage, the male nuṭfa settles in the womb.The soul of the individual is endowed at this stage, which contradicts the opinions of Aristotle and Galen to whom it is imparted at a later stage.In the second stage, the vegetative soul attracts the menstrual blood to the nuṭfa and heats it, becoming a ʿalaqa "coagulating like rennet coagulates milk". 84The planet Saturn rules this stage/month, because it is the highest planet, the place of noble essences and the fount of spiritual and intellectual powers.Saturn is heavy and cold, holding the ʿalaqa in place.We find a similar discussion of conception and the role of the planets in a pediatric treatise entitled Ḫalq al-ǧanīn wa-tadbīr al-ḥabālā wa'l-mawlūdīn ('The Creation of the Fetus and the Management of Pregnant Women and Newborns') by ʿArīb ibn Saʿd al-Qurṭubī, the secretary of the Caliph al-Ḥakam II (r.961-976), to whom the treatise is dedicated. 86Al-Qurṭubī follows Galen and is of the opinion that women produce semen.The strength of desire in one parent determines which semen dominates and therefore the child's resemblance to the mother or the father. 87Referring to Hippocartes' Book on the Nature of the Child and the Book of the Embryo, 88 al-Qurṭubī also explains that the womb consists of two cavities and two "horns" (fallopian tubes) at the ends of which are the female testicles.
During sex, the horns shake, dropping the seed (zarʿ). 89Conception occurs when the female and male semens meet, forming the nuṭfa which becomes foam-like in six days, then bloodlike (šibh damm) after fourteen days.It grows into a muḍġa after 26 days and develops a navel through which it derives nourishment, blood, and breath from the mother.Al-Qurṭubī then discusses the debate between Aristotle and Hippocrates concerning the first vital organ to develop in the fetus: the former contends it is the heart, the latter the brain.After this, the fetus "branches out" like a tree and continues to grow. 90This is followed by a chapter on the duration of pregnancy which begins with accounts of Hijazi women carrying children for 30 months and longer, and monstrous pregnancies and births. 91Concerning seven-month pregnancies, al-Qurṭubī states that the Umayyad Caliph ʿAbd al-Malik ibn Marwān (r.685-705) was a "sevener", and so was the poet Jarīr (c.650-c.728). 92The fetus is complete and strong in the seventh month, therefore birth during this month is not risky.He provides an astronomical justification.There are two turning points (buḥrān) in the development of the fetus: "if the year witnesses a whole turn (dawr) of the cycles of the spheres, in it comes a powerful turning point; [as a result], change and motion manifest in the bodies.Half the year is also a turning point because it would be half a turn".If the fetus completes half a solar year it becomes strong and can be safely delivered. 93As for the dangers of birth on the eighth month, it is explained medically and astrologically.If the baby is not delivered in the seventh month, then, in the eighth month, it will be weak and exhausted, have tumors, and suffer pain from the motions of the seventh month; therefore it will more likely die.Jesus Christ is an eight-month baby; 86 HITCHCOCK [1990]: 70-78, particularly 75-7.87 al-QURṬUBĪ [1956]

Conclusion
Ptolemy in Tetrabiblos distinguishes between two "beginnings" of human life: conception, when the general characteristics of the individual are developed; and birth when personal inclinations are determined.Basing a natal chart on the moment of conception is more reliable; however, identifying it is difficult and fraught with uncertainties. 99In pseudo-Ptolemy's Centiloquium, a helpful tip is provided in proposition 51: the sign in which the Moon is found at the time of birth is the ascendant at conception. 100 The Iḫwān posit that the embryo "gets connected" in the moment and hour of conception to the celestial powers configured at that moment and becomes subject to its signs (išārāt), perhaps meaning that the astrological configuration at the time of conception-not just birth-has a signification on the life of the individual. 101The astrological configurations at the time of conception or birth obviously vary from one person to another.Notwithstanding, establishing a correlation between the planets and the months of pregnancy in the Arabic medical and astrological texts has no direct bearing on the practice of astrology, specifically genethliacal astrology.Rather, they explicate the process of individuation, from species to member, rather than prognosticate.The significance of the planets in each month is the same for all individuals as they have influence over the stages of physical development and gestation of all embryos.Aristotle's metaphysical theories of generation and corruption, particularly his four causes (formal, material, efficient, and final), and his notions of potentiality and actuality, were applied by medieval Arabic philosophers, astrologers, and physicians to understand the roles of the male and female generative principles in conception.Texts like the Sirr alḫalīqa by pseudo-Apollonius, Masqaṭ al-nuṭfa by Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ, and astrological works such as Abū Maʿšar's Kitāb al-madḫal al-kabīr differed in ascribing efficient causation to the male generative principle or the female.However, they seem to accede that the womb is the microcosmic counterpart of the universe; it is receptive to the same astral influences that actualise the generation of species, except that they are now the astral causes of conception and fetus development.Through their description of astral causality in conception, they elucidate the unity of the universe, illustrating that indeed 'as above so below'.99 PTOLEMY [1940], iii: 220-4.
Below is a table of the Brethren's planet/month correlation:85To the list of early astro-gynecological texts we can add the pseudo-Galenic text De spermate surviving presently in 42 Latin manuscript and a Middle English translation.Its origin is unknown but a late antique provenance has been suggested;MERISALO & PAHTA [2008]: 91-92; PAHTA[1998].It is asserted in this text that the stars have strong influence on the male and female semens, the womb, and the physical development and characteristics of the infant;BURNETT [1990]: 97.Some ideas in De Spermate, particularly its account on the medical spirits, have been linked to the Pantegni of Constantine the African (d.before 1098/9) which is an adaptation of Kitāb Kāmil al-ṣināʿa al-ṭibbiyya ('The Complete Book of the Medical Art') by ʿAlī ibn al-ʿAbbās al-MAǦŪSĪ (d.994);BURNETT [1994]: 101.
: 8-10.88 Kitāb al-aǧinna ('The Book of Embryos') is a Hippocratic adaptation and paraphrase conflated with commentary by a certain Ibn Šahda al-Karḫī as mentioned by Ibn Nadīm.It is also referred to by the Abbasid physician and translator Ḥunayn ibn Isḥāq (809-873) as Tabīʿat al-ǧanīn ('The Nature of the Emryo').It contains ideas from On Semen, On Generation, and the Nature of the Child; see HIPPOCRATES [1978]: i-ii, vi.