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women and islamic law 277always produce embryos that initially are both male and female(some scientists even claim that they are initially all female). Thus,scientific research on the early stages of embryonic development alsocontradicts the hypothetical ‘male first, female second’ story.As said before, the term nis§" expresses the notion of delay, deferral,or postponement, and can refer to basically everything that might‘come later’. We propose to understand nis§" in this sense when welook at 3:14, which uses the term nis§" when talking about people’s‘love of things’ and objects ‘eagerly desired’:Fair in the eyes of men [zuyyina li’l-n§s] is the love of things they covet:[ al-nis§"] and sons; heaped-up hoards of gold and silver; horses branded(for blood and excellence); and (wealth of ) cattle and [a bonus in cropsof wheat]. Such are the possessions of this world’s life; but in nearnessto God is the best of the goals (to return to). ($l #Imr§n 3:14)In this context nis§" cannot possibly mean ‘women’. 32 First, becausesuch a rendering would ignore the fact that the verse speaks aboutthe desires of all people ( al-n§s!), men and women, and not just men. 33Second, it would turn women into commodities and goods of pleasurethat are no more than ‘heaped-up hoards of gold and silver’,and on a par with ‘horses, cattle and well-tilled land’. Howevertempting it must be for some of the fuqah§" and many sexist exegetesto regard women as part of their livestock (ranked as equals withcows, sheep, donkeys, oxen, and mules), we should resist such aridiculous interpretation of Allah’s speech. Instead, nis§" here literallymeans ‘things that arrive last’, that is, goods of the latest fashion.The verse is absolutely accurate in saying that people in general, not32All translators consulted think otherwise and translate al-nis§", like YA, as‘women’. Ambros lists, as do all other dictionaries, al-nis§" under the radical root ofn-s-w (Ambros, Dictionary: 267), whereas MS links al-nis§" to the root of n-s-", hencehis interpretation of nis§" in the sense of nasÊ", lit. ‘postponed’. However, the link isnot as far-fetched as it seems. Lane lists under n-s-" terms such as nas" un , nus" un andnis" un : ‘a woman who is supposed to be pregnant’, also nasu" un or nusu" un : ‘in whompregnancy has appeared’; in the sense of nasi" un : ‘a woman whose menstrual dischargeis later than its usual time, and who is therefore hoped to be pregnant’. In thelast example, the semantic connection between n-s-" and n-s-w is clearly evident, andit seems that MS bases his interpretation of al-nis§" on this.33Some translators render al-n§s as ‘men’, but MF and others follow MS and say‘attractive to mankind’ (i.e., men and women) and yet still translate al-nis§" as‘women’, leaving it unexplained why the text states that all mankind (includingwomen) lust after women, implying a natural disposition (lesbian-homosexual love)that is theologically very difficult to uphold.