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Refutations

The Hadith on the Two-Striped Snake: Scientific Confirmation of Miscarriage and Blindness

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What was presented as a doubt against the hadith of the two-striped snake turns out, upon examination of the medical literature, to be a scientific miracle. Some Christians have raised a doubt concerning this hadith, claiming that the description of the snake causing miscarriage and blindness is implausible. The medical research — spanning from 1953 to 2007 — establishes exactly the opposite.

The Hadith

Sahih al-Bukhari 3310 — Kitāb Bad’ al-Khalq On the authority of Abdullah ibn Umar (may Allah be pleased with them both): The Prophet ﷺ demolished his wall and found the skin of a snake in it. He said: “Look where it is.” They looked, and he said: “Kill it.” So I used to kill snakes for that reason. Then I met Abu Lubabah, who told me that the Prophet ﷺ said:

“Do not kill snakes — for every tailless snake with two white spots causes miscarriage and blindness, so kill it.”

Grade: Sahih · Bukhari

Ibn ‘Abd al-Barr said: It is said that the one with two stripes is a type of snake that has two white lines on its back. Al-Nadr ibn Shumayl added that it is blue in colour, and that no pregnant woman would look at it without miscarrying. The tailless one is the snake with a short tail — al-Dawūdī said it is a snake of approximately a handspan in length or a little more. The apparent meaning of the narration is that they may refer to the same type, though scholars have noted both as distinct characteristics to be vigilant about.

First: Miscarriage

A comprehensive PubMed literature review — covering 213 venomous snakebite cases in pregnant women from 1966 to 2009 — established fetal loss as a well-documented outcome of snake envenomation. Seneviratne et al. reported that nearly 30% of envenomated pregnant mothers suffered spontaneous abortion. Dunnihoo et al. found a 43% fetal loss rate across 30 detailed reports. Fetal loss mechanisms include: direct toxic effect of venom on the fetus, haemorrhage into the placenta causing abruptio placentae, premature uterine contractions initiated by the venom, and maternal haemorrhage causing acute fetal anaemia and in utero death.

Sources:

Second: Blindness

The Arabic word used in the hadith is ‘amash — blindness. In Lisān al-‘Arab: “I blinded him, so he blinded him, if his sight went away.” Multiple independent peer-reviewed studies spanning from 1953 to 2007 have confirmed that venomous snake bites cause blindness — unilateral or bilateral, temporary or permanent:

Study 1 — Davenport RC & Budden FH (1953) — “Loss of sight following snake bite” — British Journal of Ophthalmology 37:119–121: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/13032366/

Study 2 — Guttmann-Friedmann A (1956) — “Blindness after snake bite” — British Journal of Ophthalmology 40:57–59: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/13284232/

Study 3 — Sahai AS & Sinha RH (1978) — “Bilateral blindness following snake bite” — Indian Journal of Ophthalmology 26:16

Study 4 — Naja nigricollis (spitting cobra) envenomation — “Snake venom ophthalmia and blindness caused by the spitting cobra in Nigeria” — 4 cases of corneal ulceration, 2 permanently blinded: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/1084700/

Study 5 — Singh J et al. (2007) — “Macular Infarction Following Viperine Snake Bite” — Archives of Ophthalmology 125(10):1430–31: https://doi.org/10.1001/archopht.125.10.1430

Study 6 — Ghosh AK et al. (2006) — Bilateral vitreous haemorrhage following snake bite — Journal of Indian Medical Association 104(7):404–5: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/17240816/

Study 7 — Cortical blindness as an unusual sequela of snake bite: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10858776/

The 2007 Archives of Ophthalmology study and the 2006 JIMA study together confirm multiple mechanisms:

Peer-Reviewed Medical Literature — Compiled from the studies above “Venomous snake bites may result in neurologic or hemostatic dysfunction. Viperine (hemotoxic) snake bites may produce coagulopathy, which may result in several systemic complications. Visual loss may result from: (1) direct inoculation of venom into the eye — causing globe necrosis, keratomalacia, and uveitis — or from optic neuritis; or (2) hemostatic abnormality — causing vitreous haemorrhage, cortical infarction, and central retinal artery occlusion.”

Loss of vision results either from direct destruction of the eye’s structures — globe necrosis, corneal damage, uveal inflammation, optic neuritis — or from haemostatic disruption causing vitreous haemorrhage, damage to the visual cortex, or occlusion of the central retinal artery.

The Mechanism: Endothelin

A substance called endothelin (ET) causes contraction of the retinal arteries, reducing blood supply to the retina and producing blindness. Peer-reviewed research confirmed that certain snake venoms contain a substance homologous in both structure and biological action to endothelin:

“ET and some snake toxins have a homologous structure and similar biologic actions.”

Source: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9175153/

The Prophet ﷺ identified, fourteen centuries ago, two specific medical consequences of this category of snake — miscarriage and blindness — that modern peer-reviewed ophthalmology and toxicology have since confirmed through multiple independent studies spanning from 1953 to 2007.

Al-Hadid 57:16 أَلَمْ يَأْنِ لِلَّذِينَ آمَنُوا أَن تَخْشَعَ قُلُوبُهُمْ لِذِكْرِ اللَّهِ وَمَا نَزَلَ مِنَ الْحَقِّ وَلَا يَكُونُوا كَالَّذِينَ أُوتُوا الْكِتَابَ مِن قَبْلُ فَطَالَ عَلَيْهِمُ الْأَمَدُ فَقَسَتْ قُلُوبُهُمْ

“Has not the time come for those who have believed that their hearts should become humble at the remembrance of Allah and what has come down of the truth — and they not be like those who were given the Scripture before, and a long period passed over them and their hearts hardened, and many of them are wicked.”

The doubt raised against this hadith has become evidence for it. Medical science — through studies published across six decades from 1953 to 2007 — has confirmed that venomous snake bites cause both miscarriage and blindness through precisely identified biochemical and physiological mechanisms. The Prophet ﷺ stated this as a specific characteristic of the two-striped tailless snake fourteen centuries before any of this research existed, in an era when neither toxicology nor ophthalmology had the instruments to discover it. I bear witness that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is His servant and Messenger.
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