The Quran on Human Embryonic Development:

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Bismillah:


here is my answer to this article you have shown me.

Scientific errors and the myth of embryology in the Koran:
In an effort to show the scientific accuracy of the Koran, Muslim's are quick to bring up the claim of embryology revealed in stunning accuracy, before man discovered for himself. Muslims love to tell the story of how professor Keith L. Moore, the former anatomist at the University of Toronto, was impressed with the Koran’s embryological information.

In a conference took place in Canada after Professor Keith Moore’s declaration of the accuracy of the Qur’anic statements that deals with Embryology, and after about 80 questions were asked to him, he said… ‘If you would have asked me these 80 questions, 30 years ago, I would not be able to answer more than 50 percent - Because embryology has developed recently in the past 30 years.’ He said this in the eighties. Now, do we believe Dr. Keith Moore whose statement is available on video tape called ‘This is the truth’...’Anna-ul-Haq’ or will you believe this website? I leave the decision to you.

However many Muslim are completely unaware that all of the information in the Qur'an about embryology had already been revealed many different times, centuries before hand. Furthermore, some of the information is scientifically inaccurate

Dr. Moore also wrote a book on clinical embryology, and when he presented this information in Toronto, it caused quite a stir throughout Canada. It was on the front pages of some of the newspapers across Canada, and some of the headlines were quite funny. For instance, one headline read: "SURPRISING THING FOUND IN ANCIENT PRAYER BOOK!" It seems obvious from this example that people do not clearly understand what it is all about. As a matter of fact, one newspaper reporter asked Professor Moore, "Don't you think that maybe the Arabs might have known about these things - the description of the embryo, its appearance and how it changes and grows? Maybe they were not scientists, maybe they did some crude dissections on their own - carved up people and examined these things." The professor immediately pointed out to him that he [i.e., the reporter] had missed a very important point - all of the slides of the embryo that had been shown and that had been projected in the film had come from pictures taken through a microscope. He said, "It does not matter if someone had tried to discover embryology fourteen centuries ago. They could not have seen it!"


All of the descriptions in the Qur'an of the appearance of the embryo are of the item when it is still too small to see with the eye; therefore, one needs a microscope to see it. Since such a device had only been around for little more than two hundred years, Dr. Moore taunted, "Maybe fourteen centuries ago someone secretly had a microscope and did this research, making no mistakes anywhere. Then he somehow taught Muhammad PBUH and convinced him to put this information in his book. Then he destroyed his equipment and kept it a secret forever. Do you believe that? You really should not unless you bring some proof because it is such a ridiculous theory." In fact, when he was asked, "How do you explain this information in the Qur'an?" Dr. Moore's reply was, "It could only have been divinely revealed!"

But don't take my word for it, early Muslim doctors, like Ibn-Qayyim, were first to blow the whistle when they saw the Koranic material, mirrored a Greek doctor named Galen, who lived of 150 AD. In 1983 Basim Musallam, Director of the Centre of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge concluded, "The stages of development which the Qur'an and Hadith established for believers agreed perfectly with Galen's scientific account....There is no doubt that medieval thought appreciated this agreement between the Qur'an and Galen, for Arabic science employed the same Qur'anic terms to describe the Galenic stages" (B. Musallam (Cambridge, 1983) Sex and Society in Islam. p. 54) In other words when it comes to embryology the Qur'an merely echoes the scientific knowledge man had already discovered 450 years earlier.

I will quote from Keith L. Moore's, A Scientist's Interpretation of References of Embryology in the Qur'an.

"Then We placed him as a drop in a place of rest."
This statement is from Sura 23:13. The drop or nutfah has been interpreted as the sperm or spermatozoon, but a more meaningful interpretation would be the zygote which divides to form a blastocyst which is implanted in the uterus ("a place of rest"). This interpretation is supported by another verse in the Qur'an which states that "a human being is created from a mixed drop." The zygote forms by the union of a mixture of the sperm and the ovum ("The mixed drop").


"Then We made the drop into a leech-like structure."


This statement is from Sura 23:14. The word "alaqah" refers to a leech or bloodsuc.ker. This is an appropriate description of the human embryo from days 7-24 when it clings to the endometrium of the uterus, in the same way that a leech clings to the skin. Just as the leech derives blood from the host, the human embryo derives blood from the decidua or pregnant endometrium. It is remarkable how much the embryo of 23-24 days resembles a leech (Fig. 2). As there were no microscopes or lenses available in the 7th century, doctors would not have known that the human embryo had this leech-like appearance. In the early part of the fourth week, the embryo is just visible to the unaided eye because it is smaller than a kernel of wheat.


"Then of that leech-like structure, We made a chewed lump."


This statement is also from Sura 23:14. The Arabic word "mudghah" means "chewed substance or chewed lump." Toward the end of the fourth week, the human embryo looks somewhat like a chewed lump of flesh. The chewed appearance results from the somites which resemble teeth marks. The somites represent the beginnings or primordia of the vertebrae.


"Then We made out of the chewed lump, bones, and clothed the bones in flesh."


This continuation of Sura 23:14 indicates that out of the chewed lump stage, bones and muscles form. This is in accordance with embryological development. First the bones form as cartilage models and then the muscles (flesh) develop around them from the somatic mesoderm.


"Then We developed out of it another creature."


This next part of Sura 23:14 implies that the bones and muscles result in the formation of another creature. This may refer to the human-like embryo that forms by the end of the eighth week. At this stage it has distinctive human characteristics and possesses the primordia of all the internal and external organs and parts. After the eighth week, the human embryo is called a fetus. This may be the new creature to which the verse refers.

If you look at Galen’s idea you will notice that the Qur'anic description of the development of the embryo is quite different. Both Galen's theory and the Qur'an tell us of four stages of development, but if you read the above quote attentively, you'll know it is ridiculous to assert that Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) plagiarized Galen's ideas.


Here's why,


the Qur'an states that Allah made the drop an alaqah, which is a leech-like structure, not a clot of blood. It is scientifically incorrect to say that the sperm drop became a clot of blood, you are using a wrong translation. "This is an appropriate description of the human embryo from days 7-24 when it clings to the endometrium of the uterus, in the same way that a leech clings to the skin. Just as the leech derives blood from the host, the human embryo derives blood from the decidua or pregnant endometrium."


Then, Allah says He turned that alaqah into a mudghah, a chewed lump of flesh, which is also embryologically correct. "The chewed appearance results from the somites which resemble teeth marks."


Indeed Galen thought the embryo forms in four stages, but he never described it as accurately as Prophet Muhammad PBUH. This information would have never been discovered without a microscope, and we all know the microscope was invented in the 17th century. Therefore, it would be reasonable to conclude that this information was revealed to Muhammad(s.a.w) by the Creator of the embryo.


Salam.


Wael.