1

Koran: The Myth of Embryology!

Scientific errors of medical information on embryology and human development
in the mother’s womb.
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.
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.
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.
Samuel ha-Yehudi was a 2nd century Jewish physician, and one of many with an
interest in embryology. The embryo was called peri habbetten (fruit of the body)
and develops as golem (formless, rolled-up thing); shefir meruqqam
(embroidered foetus - shefir means amniotic sac); 'ubbar (something carried);
v'alad (child); v'alad shel qayama (noble or viable child) and ben she-kallu
chadashav (child whose months have been completed). (J. Needham
(Cambridge, 2nd edition 1959) A History of Embryology, p. 77)
J. Needham spent almost 60 pages in his book "A history of embryology",
discussing ancient Greek, Indian and Egyptian embryology, than in less than 1
page he dismisses the entire Arabic tradition by concluding that "Arabic science
... was not of great help to embryology". After listing some of the verses in the
Qur'an about embryology he dismisses them as "a seventh-century echo of
Aristotle and the Ayer-veda”. (J. Needham (Cambridge, 2nd edition 1959) A
History of Embryology, p. 82), in other words a mixture of Greek and ancient
Indian teachings.
 2

And what about professor Keith L. Moore, once at the University of Toronto, who
Muslims love to quote as a scientist who saw the light of the Koran? If you buy
Moore’s latest sixth edition University textbook called "The developing human",
he actually directs his readers to read an essay by Basim Musallam, who we just
quoted. who shows that the Koran merely echoes what Greek doctor "Galen"
wrote 450 years earlier. It seems Dr. Moore is not as impressed today. (B.
Musallam, The human embryo in Arabic scientific and religious thought, in, G. R.
Dunstan (ed.) (University of Exeter Press, 1990) The human embryo: Aristotle
and the Arabic and European traditions, pp. 32-46)

Bones Before Muscle? The Koran got it wrong!

Keith L. Moore knows that the Koran is wrong when it says that bones are
formed first, and then flesh is placed upon them.
"Look further at the bones, how We bring them together and clothe
them with flesh..." (Al-Baqara 2:259)
The Koran gives the impression that first the skeleton is formed, and then it is
clothed with muscle. Dr. Bucaille knows perfectly well that this is not true. The
muscles and the cartilage precursors of the bones start forming from the
somite at the same time. At the end of the eighth week there are only a few
centres of ossification started but the fetus is already capable of some muscular
movement.
In a personal letter dated 8/1/87 from Dr. T.W. Sadler, Ph.D., Associate Professor
in the Department of Anatomy at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill,
N.C. 27514, and author of Langman's Medical Embryology, Dr. Sadler states,
"At the 8th week post fertilization, the ribs would be cartilaginous
and muscles would be present. Also at this time ossification would
begin near the angle of the rib and would spread along the shaft
until it reached the costal cartilage by the 4th month. Muscles would
be capable of some movement at 8 weeks, but by 10-12 weeks this
capacity would be much better developed."
It is always better to have two witnesses so we shall see what Dr. Keith L. Moore
has to say about the development of bones and muscles in his book The
Developing Human. Extracted from Chapters 15-17 we find the following
information:
The skeletal and muscle system develops from the mesoderm, some of which
becomes mesenchymal cells. These mesenchymal cells make muscles, and also
have the ability to differentiate...into osteoblasts, which make bone. At first the
bones form as cartilage models so that by the end of the sixth week the whole
 3

limb skeleton is formed out of cartilage but without any bony calcium as shown in
Figure 15-13. (Keith L. Moore, The Developing Human, 4th ed., 1988, p. 346.)
While the bone models are forming, myoblasts develop a large muscle mass in
each limb bud, separating into extensor and flexor components. In other words,
the limb musculature develops simultaneously in situ from the
mesenchyme surrounding the developing bones. So Dr. Moore agrees
completely with Dr. Sadler.
Furthermore, during a personal conversation with Dr. Moore I showed him Dr.
Sadler's statement and he agreed that it was absolutely valid.
Conclusion: on bone development Dr. Sadler and Dr. Moore agree. There is
no time when calcified bones have been formed and then the muscles are
placed around them. The muscles are there several weeks before there are
calcified bones, rather than being added around previously formed bones as the
Qur'an states. The Qur'an is in complete error here.
We are going to examine the historical situation leading up to the time of
Muhammad to see what Muhammad and his people believed about embryology.
The trail will start with the Greek and Indian medical men.
HIPPOCRATES
We will start with Hippocrates. According to the best evidence, he was born on
the Greek island of Cos in 460 BC. His stages are as follows with the references
in the text.
Semen
Sperm is a product, which comes from the whole body of each parent, weak
sperm coming from the weak parts, and strong sperm from the strong parts.
Section 8, p 321
Coagulation of Mother's blood
The seed (embryo), then, is contained in a membrane ... Moreover, it grows
because of its mother's blood, which descends to the womb. For once a
woman conceives, she ceases to menstruate... Section 14, p. 326
Flesh
At this stage, with the descent and coagulation of the mother's blood, flesh
begins to be formed, with the umbilicus. Section 14, p. 326
Bones
As the flesh grows it is formed into distinct members by breath ... The bones
grow hard ... moreover they send out branches like a tree ... Section 17, p. 328
This information is clearly summarized in the following chart.
 4

STAGES OF PRENATAL DEVELOPMENT ACCORDING TO HIPPOCRATES

STAGE 1. Sperm
STAGE 2. Mother’s blood descends around the membrane
STAGE 3. Flesh, fed through umbilicus
STAGE 4. Bones
Clearly this shows that 1000 years before the Qur'an the development of the
embryo was divided into stages.

ARISTOTLE
Next we will look at Aristotle. In his book On the Generation of Animals, (Aristotle,
On the Generation of Animals, Trans. by Arthur Platt, Vol. 9 of Great Books of the
Western World, Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc., 1952.) sometime about 350 BC,
Aristotle gives his stages of embryology. (The section numbers are in the text.)
Semen and menstrual blood
In this section, 728a, Aristotle speaks of the male semen as being in a pure state
... "It follows that what the female would contribute to the semen of the male
would be material for the semen to work upon." In other words the semen clots
the menstrual blood.
Then he continues, "Nature forms from the purest material the flesh ... and from
the residues thereof bones, sinews, hair, and also nails ... and lastly, round
about the bones, and attached to them by thin fibrous bands, grow the fleshy
parts. ..." 654b
Clearly the Qur'an follows this exactly, sperm clotting the menstrual blood, which
forms meat. Then the bones are formed and lastly "round about the bones ...
grow the fleshy parts" as we see in the following chart.

STAGES OF PRENATAL DEVELOPMENT ACCORDING TO ARISTOTLE

STAGE 1. Sperm
STAGE 2. Catamenia -- menstrual blood
STAGE 3. Flesh
STAGE 4. Bones
STAGE 5. Around the bones grow the fleshy parts

NEXT WE SHALL CONSIDER INDIAN MEDICINE

 5

The opinion of Charaka (123 AD) and Susruta is that both the male and female
contributed seed. The "secretion" of the male is called the sukra (semen)...
The "secretion" of the woman is called artava or sonita (blood) and it is derived
from food by way of blood..." (Dr. P. Kutumbiah, M.D., F.R.C.P., Ancient Indian
Medicine, Orient Longmans, Madras, 1969, p. 2-4.)
Here we see that in the medicine of India, they too had the idea that the child
was formed from the male semen and the female menstrual blood.
=============================================================
=======

NOW WE SHALL LOOK AT GALEN

Galen was born in 131 AD in Pergamum (modern Bergama in Turkey).
Our knowledge of his book, De Semine, depends on two Greek manuscripts of
the 15th and 16th century and two Arabic copies from the 12th and 13th century
of the same translation made in about 840 AD, i.e. 700 years after Galen lived.
Galen's work was considered so important that copies were still being made in
1500 AD. Secondly, although the Arabic copies reflect a translation made 700
years after Galen's life, no one doubts their essential accuracy.
I mention this because in comparison we Christians have 75% of the Greek
Gospel-New Testament in papyrus copies from only 150 years after Christ
ascended into heaven, and we have 2 complete Greek copies from 350 AD.
Therefore, there is no reason to doubt the essential accuracy of the Gospel-New
Testament either. It has not been changed.
Galen - On Semen
Galen says, "The substance from which the fetus is formed is not merely
menstrual blood, as Aristotle maintained, but menstrual blood plus the two
semens." p 50.
The Qur'an agrees with Galen here when it says in Sura 76:2, "We created man
from a drop of mingled sperm."
Embryological Development
Concerning Embryological development, Galen also taught that the embryo
developed in stages.
He wrote, "the first is that in which ... the form of the semen prevails. At this time
Hippocrates too, the all marvellous, ... still calls it semen (geniture)."
 6

The next stage is "when it has been filled with blood, and heart, brain and liver
are (still) unarticulated and unshaped ... this is the period ... that Hippocrates
(called) foetus."
(The Quranic Sura 22:5 reflects this when it says, "... Then out of a morsel of
flesh, partly formed and partly unformed...")
"And now the third period of gestation has come ... Thus it (nature) caused flesh
to grow on and around all the bones."
We saw above that the Qur'an agrees with this in Sura 23:14 where it says, "And
we clothed the bones (with) meat."
"The fourth and final period (puer or child - verse 9) is at the stage when all the
parts in the limbs have been differentiated." (Galen, op.cit. I 9, verses 1-9, p. 92-
95.)

GALEN'S STAGES OF PRENATAL DEVELOPMENT

STAGE 1. The two semens
STAGE 1b. Plus menstrual blood
STAGE 2. Unshaped flesh
STAGE 3. Bones
STAGE 3b. Flesh grows on and around the bones

Thus we see that Galen also has stages. He divides them differently, but the
sequence is the same.

THE XVI BOOKS OF GALEN AS THE BASIS OF MEDICAL STUDIES

Galen was so important in medicine that just about the time of the Hejira, four
leading medical men in Alexandria, Egypt decided to form a medical school using
16 books of Galen as the basis of the studies. This continued up to and including
the 13th century. (LeClerc, op. cit., p. 41.)

ARABIA AROUND 600 AD, BETWEEN GALEN AND AVICENNA

We must now ask ourselves what the political, economic and medical climate
was in Arabia at the time of Muhammad.
From the Hadramaut in Yemen, the caravans of the spice trade passed north
through Mecca and Medina and then reached into all of Europe.
 7

In North Arabia in about 500 AD the Ghassanids took over and by 528 AD the
Ghassan controlled the Syrian desert to the outskirts of Yathrib (Medina). Syriac
(a form of Aramaic, related to Arabic) was their official language.
As early as 463 AD, the Jews translated the Torah and Old Testament from
Hebrew into Syriac. (The British Museum has a copy) This made it available to
the Ghassan who were Christians and to the Jewish tribes in Arabia for their
members who didn't know Hebrew.
During this time, Sergius al-ras Ayni, (died in Constantinople in 536 AD), one of
the earliest and greatest translators from Greek into Syriac (Aramaic), translated
various works on medicine, including 26 books of Galen's works into Syriac.
This made them available in the Kingdom of Khosru I and to the Ghassan Tribe
whose influence extended to the outskirts of Medina.
Khosru I, (Arabic Kisra) King of Persia from 531-579, was known as Khosru the
Great. His troops conquered areas as far away as Yemen. He also loved learning
and started several schools.
"The school of Jundi-Shapur became, during Khosru I's long reign of 48 years,
the greatest intellectual center of the time. Within its walls Greek, Jewish,
Nestorian, Persian and Hindu thought and experience were freely exchanged.
Teaching was done largely in Syriac from Syriac translations of Greek texts."
(The Role of the Nestorians and Muslims in the History of Medicine, Allen O.
Whipple, 1967, Princeton Univ. Press, p. 16.) This meant that Aristotle,
Hippocrates, and Galen were readily available when the medical school at Jundi-
Shapur was operating during his reign.
The next step was that the conquering Arabs compelled the Nestorians to
translate their Syriac texts of Greek medicine into Arabic. The translation from
Syriac to Arabic was easy as the two languages had the same grammar.
Concerning the local medical situation during Muhammad's life, we know there
were physicians living in Arabia during this period.
Harith ben Kalada was the best-educated physician trained in the healing art. "He
was born about the middle of the sixth century, at Ta'if, in the tribe of Banu Thaqif.
He travelled through Yemen and then Persia where he received his education in
the medical sciences at the great medical school of Jundi-Shapur and thus was
intimately acquainted with the medical teachings of Aristotle, Hippocrates and
Galen.
"Having completed his studies he practiced as a physician in Persia and during
this time he was called to the court of King Khosru, with whom he had a long
conversation. He came back to Arabia about the beginning of Islam and settled
down at Ta'if. While there Abu'l-Khayr, a King of Yemen, came to see him, in
connection with a certain disease from which he was suffering and, on being
cured, rewarded him with much money and a slave girl.
 8

"Though Harith ben Kalada did not write any book on medicine, his views on
many medical problems are preserved in his conversation with Khosru. About the
eye he says that it is constituted of fat which is the white part, of water which is
the black part, and of wind which constituted the eyesight." All this ... goes to
show the acquaintance of Harith with the Greek doctors. (Dr. Muhammad
Zubayr Siddiqi, Studies in Arabic and Persian Medical Literature, Calcutta
University, 1959, p. 6-7.) He died in the reign of 'Umar the 2nd Caliph.
Summarizing the situation in a few words in his book Histoire de la Médecine
Arabe, Dr. Lucien LeClerc writes,
"Harith ben Kalada studied medicine at Jandi-Shapur and
Muhammad owed to Harith a part of his medical knowledge. Thus,
with the one as well as the other, we easily recognize the traces of
Greek (medicine)." (LeClerc, op.cit., p. 123)
"Sometimes Muhammad treated the sick but in the difficult cases
he would send the patients to Harith." (LeClerc, op.cit., p. 33.)
Another educated person around Muhammad was Nadr ben Harith--not related
to the doctor. He was a Qurayshite and cousin of Muhammad and had also
visited the court of Khosru. He had learned Persian and music, which he
introduced among the Quraish at Mecca.
However, he was not sympathetic to Muhammad, mocking some of the stories in
the Qur'an. "Muhammad never forgave him for this, and when he was taken
prisoner at the Battle of Badr, he caused him to be put to death." (Edward G.
Brown, M.B., F.R.C.P., Arabian Medicine, Cambridge, 1921, p. 11.)
In summary, we see that
(1) Arabs living in Mecca and Medina in 600 AD had political and
economic relations with people from Ethiopia, Yemen, Persia, and
Byzantium, i.e. present day Turkey.
(2) A cousin of Muhammad knew Persian well enough to do his
musical studies in it.
(3) The Ghassan tribe, which ruled the Syrian desert over to the
gates of Medina, used Syriac--one of the main languages used to
teach medicine at Jundi-Shapur--as their official language.
(4) An ill king of Yemen came to Ta'if to consult the physician Harith
ben Kalada who had been trained at Jundi-Shapur--the best
medical school in that world--and to whom Muhammad sometimes
sent patients.
 9

(5) During Muhammad's life time a new medical school was

established in Alexandria using the XVI books of Galen as their
texts.
This all shows that there was ample opportunity for Muhammad and the people
around him to have heard of the embryological theories of Aristotle, Hippocrates
and Galen when they went to seek treatment from Harith ben Kalada and other
local doctors.
Thus when the Qur'an says in the Late Meccan Sura of the Believer (Al-Mu'min)
40:67,
"He it is Who created you from dust, then from a sperm-drop, then
from a leech-like clot (‘alaqa) ... THAT PERHAPS YOU MAY
UNDERSTAND,"
And when the Sura of the Pilgrimage (Al-Hajj) 22:5 starts out,
"O mankind! if you have doubt about the resurrection (consider)
that We have created you from dust, then from a drop of seed, then
from a clot (‘alaqa), etc..."
it is correct for us to ask again what were they to understand?
What were they to consider?
When we look at the Quranic stages again the answer is very clear.

QURANIC STAGES OF PRENATAL DEVELOPMENT

STAGE 1. Nutfa -- sperm
STAGE 2. ‘Alaqa -- clot
STAGE 3. Mudagha -- piece or lump of flesh
STAGE 4. ‘Adaam -- bones
STAGE 5. Dressing the bones with muscles

They understood and considering that which was common knowledge--the

embryological stages as taught by the Greek physicians.
I do not mean that Muhammad's listeners all knew the names of the Greek
physicians, but they knew the embryological stages of the Greek physicians.
(1) They believed that the male sperm
(2) They believed that this mixed with the female semen and
menstrual blood to cause it to clot and this became the baby.
 10

(3) They believed there was a time when the fetal lump was
"formed and unformed".
(4) They believed the lump became bones
(5) These were then covered with muscles
Allah in the Qur'an was using that common knowledge as a sign encouraging the
listeners and readers to turn to Him. The trouble is that this common knowledge
was and is not true.

ARAB PHYSICIANS AFTER MUHAMMAD

We must now look at one Hadith and two well-known physicians from the period
after Muhammad. Obviously they had no effect on the Qur'an, but they
demonstrate that faith in the embryological ideas of Aristotle, Hippocrates and
Galen continued among the Arabs right up to the 1600's.
The Hadith is found in the Forty Hadiths of An-Nawawi and reads as follows,
This Hadith is reported according to Abi ‘Abd-ar-rahman ‘Abdallah
ben Mas‘ud, may God be pleased with him, who said: The Apostle
of God, may God bless him and grant him salvation, spoke to us
and he is truthful and worthy of belief:
"The creation of any one of you is accomplished in various stages
in the abdomen of your mother; 40 days a drop of sperm; then he
will be (‘alaqa) a clot for the same period, then chewed meat
(mudagha) for the same period; then the angel will be sent to him
and he will blow into him the spirit (soul) and he will order four
words (about the future) by writing: his monetary fortune, and his
length of life, and his actions, and whether he is to be damned or
happy in the hereafter.
"And I swear by God Whom there is no other God except Him: it could be that
one of you will do acts as the people of heaven until there remains only one arms
length between him and it (heaven), and the writing ( of his future) will overtake
him and he will do the acts of the people of the fire and he will enter it. And it
could be that one of you will do acts of the people of the fire until there remains
only one arms length between him and it, and the writing (of his future) will
overtake him and he will do the acts of the people of heaven and he will enter it."
(Translation mine) Transmitted by Bukhari and Muslim. (An-Nawawi, op. cit., p.
28-29.)
We have here a Hadith which is reported to be from the mouth of Muhammad;
attested to by the best authorities--Bukhari and Muslim; included in a special
collection of Hadiths by a specialist in Hadiths; which has gross scientific errors.
It follows the stages of the Qur'an exactly, but here Muhammad has added other
 11

information. The drop of sperm remains a drop of sperm 40 days, then an

"‘alaqa" 40 days for a total of 80 days, then "chewed meat" for 40 days for a total
of 120 days as shown in the following summary. Modern gynaecological studies
have shown that sperm remain alive less than a week inside the female genital
tract, and that at 70 days organ differentiation and maturation are well advanced,
except for the brain.

HADITH'S STAGES OF PRENATAL DEVELOPMENT

STAGE 1. Sperm--for 40 days
STAGE 2. ‘Alaqa -- clot for 40 days
STAGE 3. Mudagha -- flesh for 40 days
This makes a total of 120 days or 3 months and there are still no bones.
In truth all organs are formed, bones are beginning to calcify, and muscles are
moving at 2 months.

This Hadith says that it doesn't even become "an unformed lump" until 80 days,
a clear error. Dr. Bucaille also mentions this Hadith and concludes,
"This description of embryonic evolution does not agree with modern data."
(Bucaille, BQ&S, p. 245.)
However, it clearly shows something of what men believed only 200 years away
from Muhammad, and it raises severe theological problems in relation to all the
Hadith.

THE THEOLOGICAL PROBLEM

Do the scientific errors in this Hadith make the theological statements of
Muhammad wrong too?
If the scientific error proves that this well attested Hadith is wrong, how do we
know anything about the validity of the other well-attested Hadiths, which don't
happen to have a scientific error to betray that they are wrong?
An even more crucial question is, how do we know that this Hadith is not an
accurate transmission? How do we know that this does not represent
Muhammad's words and understanding of the scientific facts???
Furthermore, if the correct translation of "alaqa" is "leech-like substance" as
modern Muslims like Shabir Ally claim, there is no place where these post-
Quranic doctors said so. In fact, it is just the opposite. The ideas of these Greek
physicians were being used to explain the Qur'an and the Qur'an was quoted to
enlighten the meaning of the Greek physicians.
 12

Avicenna (Ibn Sina) 980-1037 AD wrote,

679. The human being takes its origin from two things---(1) the male sperm,
which plays the part of "factor"; (2) the female sperm [first part of the
menstrual blood], which provides the matter ... These give the coagulum ("He
created man from a clot"---Q. 96,2) a certain hardiness or firmness. (Gruner,
op.cit., p. 359.)
Thus we see that "Ibn Sina gave the female semen exactly the same role that
Aristotle had assigned to the menstrual blood ... It is difficult to overstate the
importance of Ibn Sina as a scientific and philosophical authority for the pre-
modern Europeans. (Musallam, Basim F., Sex and Society in Islam, Birth control
before the 19th century. Cambridge University Press, 1983, p. 47-48.)

Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya (1291-1351)

Ibn Qayyim took full advantage of the agreement between Quranic revelation and
Greek medicine.
Here Ibn Qayyim is writing a medical account which includes
Hippocrates (italics),
the Qur'an (bold),
Hadith (bold underlined),
commentaries (plain underlined),
and his own thoughts (in plain)
in one and the same paragraph.
Hippocrates said in the third chapter of Kitab al-ajinna: "... The semen is
contained in a membrane, and it grows because of the blood of its mother which
descends to the womb (This is exactly what we quoted from Hippocrates at the
beginning of this section: "The seed (embryo), then, is contained in a membrane
... Moreover, it grows because of its mother's blood, which descends to the
womb. For once a woman conceives, she ceases to menstruate ... Section
14, p. 326." ) ... Some membranes are formed at the beginning, others after the
second month, and others in the third month..." That is why God says, "He
creates you in the wombs of your mothers, by one formation after another
in three darknesses" (Qur'an 39:6). Since each of these membranes has its
own darkness, when God mentioned the stages of creation and transformation
from one state to another, He also mentioned the darknesses of the membranes.
Most commentators explain: 'it is the darkness of the belly, and the darkness of
the womb, and the darkness of the placenta’...
In a second example we read,
 13

Hippocrates said, "The mouth opens up spontaneously, and the nose and ears
are formed from the flesh. The ears are opened, and the eyes, which are filled
with a clear liquid." The Prophet used to say, 'I worship Him Who made my
face and formed it, and opened my hearing and eyesight' etc. etc." (Ibn
Qayyim, Tuhfat, p. 248-52.)
He could do this because, as we have seen, the educated people of
Muhammad's time were familiar with Greek medicine.
However, what is important for us sitting here today to realize is that there is no
place where the Qur'an corrected Greek medicine. There is no place where
Ibn Qayyim was shouting, "Hay you guys. You've got this all wrong. The correct
meaning of ‘alaqa is "that which clings" or "leech-like substance." On the
contrary, Ibn Qayyim was demonstrating the agreement between the Qur'an and
Greek medicine--their agreement in error.
A final witness is the commentary of Imam Naasir-addiin Baidawi who died in
1282 AD. He quotes Sura 22:5 and then gives his understanding. He explains
‘alaqa as "a piece of solid blood (qata min al-dam jaamida)" and mudagha as "a
piece of meat originally as much as can be chewed (qata min al-lahm wa hiya fii
al-aasal qadr maa yamdagh) ". (Baidawi's commentary of Sura Al-Hajj 22:1-5,
Dar Al-Fikr, P.O. Box 11/7061, Beirut, Lebanon, 1982, p. 439. )

Stages of development - a modern idea?!?

As I mentioned at the beginning of this study, it has been said that the idea of the
embryo developing through stages is a modern one, and that the Qur'an is
prophesying modern embryology by depicting differing stages. Yet, we have seen
that Aristotle, Hippocrates, the Indians and Galen have all discussed stages of
embryological development during the 1000 years before the Qur'an.
And after the coming of the Qur'an, the account of the different stages as
described by the Qur'an, was carried on in the teachings of the Hadiths, Avicenna
and Ibn Qayyim, and is essentially the same as that taught by Galen and those
preceding him.
Concerning the bone stage, it is clear, as Dr. Moore demonstrates so capably in
his textbook, that muscles start forming from the somites at the same time as the
cartilage models of the bones. There is no bone stage at which the limbs of the
developing fetus are just bones around which muscles will later be placed.
It is equally clear, that ‘alaqa in the Qur'an means clot and that the Quraish who
heard Muhammad speaking understood him to be referring to the menstrual
blood as the female contribution to the developing baby.
Therefore we can conclude that during all these years, the Quranic verses
on embryology saying that "man is created from a drop of sperm which
 14

becomes a clot" were in perfect accord with the "science" of the 1st
century of the Hejira, of the time of the Qur'an.
But when compared with the modern science of our 20th century,
Hippocrates is in error,
Aristotle is in error,
Galen is in error,
The Qur'an is in error.
They are all in serious error.
(the section above by Dr. William Campbell)

An extraordinary passage from the writings of the medieval philosopher Ibn

Qayyim al-Jawziyya shows how heavily the later Arabic writers depended upon
the Greek doctors; in one continuous discourse (Ibn Qayyin (Damascus, 1971)
Tuhfat: Tuhfat al mawdud bi ahkam al-mawlud, pp. 254-291) the words of
Hippocrates explain the Qur'an and Hadith, and the latter are used to explain
Hippocrates:
"Here is someone writing a medical account who includes Hippocrates (bold
type), the Qur'an and Hadith (bold italics), commentaries on them (italics) and
his own thoughts (normal type) in one and the same paragraph. Of course the
intelligentsia of Muhammad’s time would have been familiar with both Greek and
Indian medicine: "Hippocrates said ... 'some membranes are formed at the
beginning, others after the second month, and others in the third month...'
That is why God says; 'He creates you in the wombs of your mothers, by one
formation after another in three darknesses'. Since each of these membranes
has its own darkness, when God mentioned the stages of creation and
transformation from one state to another, He also mentioned the darknesses of
the membranes. Most commentators explain: 'it is the darkness of the belly, and
the darkness of the womb, and the darkness of the placenta' ... Hippocrates said,
'The ears are opened, and the eyes, which are filled with a clear liquid.' The
Prophet used to say, 'I worship Him Who made my face and formed it, and
opened my hearing and eyesight' etc. etc"" (B. Musallam (Cambridge, 1983)
Sex and Society in Islam. p. 56).
The Koran says in16: 4 "He has created man from a sperm-drop", but this was
understood about 2000 years before the Koran, for the Bible says, "Onan knew
that the offspring would not be his; so when he went in to his brother’s wife, he
 15

wasted his seed on the ground in order not to give offspring to his brother."
(Genesis 38:9) That man was created from dust is recorded in Gen 2.
Scientific errors related to embryology are contained in the Koran. In 86:6-7 the
Koran says, "He is created from a drop emitted- Proceeding from between the
backbone and the ribs". This echoes the scientific error of Hippocrates who
believe semen originates from all the fluid in the body, starting from the brain
down the spinal chord, before passing through the kidneys and finally the
testicles into the penis. (Hippocratic Writings, Penguin Classics, 1983, p. 317)