Snippets Of Islamic Wisdom

Why do some of us follow our dads in appearance while the rest of us follow our mothers or maternal grandparents in appearance?

My dad's origins were Portuguese settlement-related whereby his ancestor from Spain theoretically tagged along with his Portuguese buddies and set sail for the East and landed in Malacca on the west coast of Malaysia where they established a trading colony and settlement about five hundred years ago.

My half-Indian-half-Chinese mom's parents came from India and China respectively probably at the turn of the century or thereabouts, a time when immigrants from those two countries were brought in mainly to assist in the development of the nation's pioneering tin mining and rubber industries.

I am the second eldest in a family of six siblings, four of whom follow my dad's side in the looks department, two brothers and two sisters, while the other two, myself included, follow my mother's parents in appearance, my Chinese maternal grandmother in my case to the extent my granddad's nickname for me was 'Korean Boy', and my Anglo-Indian maternal granddad in the case of the youngest sibling.

A typical mixed bowl of fruit, you might say.

And guess what? Islam has the answer for this mixed bowl of fruit, and how it came about.

Vol. 4, Book 55, No. 546.

When Abdullah bin Salam heard about the arrival of the Prophet at Medina, he came to him and said, "I'm going to ask you about three things which only a prophet knows about."

(skipping to the third question)

"Why does a child resemble its father, and why does it resemble its maternal uncle?"

Allah's Apostle said, "Gabriel has just now told me of their answers."

(skipping to the third answer)

"As for the resemblance of a child to its parents, if a man has sexual intercourse with his wife and gets his discharge first, the child will resemble the father, and if the woman gets her discharge first, the child will resemble her."

(ref. source: Sahih Bukhari Book 55)

Voila! And that was why I was my maternal granddad's 'Korean Boy' as a child.  A product of an orgasmic race in which my mom won. That's me!