Embryology in the Quran

This article refutes the pseudo-science of Qur'anic Embryology.

Introduction

There are propagations of the Qur'anic ‘so-called’ Embryology by such luminaries as Dr. Keith Moore and Dr. Maurice Bucaille. These works are aped by such Islamic scholars as Dr. Al Zeiny, Dr. Zakir Naik, Dr. Ibrahim Syed, Dr. Sharif Kaf Al-Ghazal, and the ubiquitous Harun Yahya aka Adnan Oktar. A good additional material is provided by Dr. Omar Abdul Rehman in which he goes into even greater detail in his attempt to validate the Qur'anic ‘human reproduction’ verses with modern scientific facts.

There are available already many excellent debunkings of the Qur'anic Embryology Pseudoscience (“QEP”). So here we will attempt to add to this debate, concentrating solely on the Qur'anic verses, because inclusion of the hadiths would clearly show up the stupidity of the QEP.

Muslim Claim

Dr. Omar Abdul Rehman’s article is clearly the most detailed, and we will use it as the basis for our rebuttal as it includes all the QEP nonsense of Drs' Keith Moore and Maurice Bucaille.

A summary of his claims is contained herein:

Analysis

Muslim Debating Technique

It is a waste of time to argue such imponderables of whether the ‘alaqa’ is a leech, or a leech-like thing, a clinging thing, or a clot. We will accept each and every one of these definitions because such arguments are futile. Both sides would merely be agreeing to disagree.

A further Islamic miracle is that words like alaqa can have several meanings, and each of these meanings applies at the same time. Thus, an alaqa is a leech, looks like a leech if viewed in a certain angle or a clot in another angle, or clings to the endometrium. Truly the Qur'an is miraculous.

Therefore, the best method of debunking the QEP is by questioning every claim as to their validity, and to make Muslims justify every claim. This would include why they chose to make a choice when there are several other equally valid possibilities, why they chose to ignore clearly nonsensical phrases, and why they assume certain phrases to be metaphorical while others to be literal.

In this way, we will show the QEP to be the patent nonsense that it is.

We will also ignore the obvious similarities between the embryology prevailing at the time the Qur'an was written and the QEP, notwithstanding Dr. Omar Abdul Rehman’s excellent article. This is because Muhammad’s plagiarizing of ancient Greek and Indian embryology can never be proven one way or the other. Therefore, we will concentrate solely in showing that the QEP is made up of incorrect or illogical or unproven assertions.

If, however, the reader is so inclined, they can read a good summary of the Muslim debating technique here, and read the relevant sections of the paper here to see how many of the word definitions used by QEP proponents are based on misquotes of Arabic dictionaries and are incompatible with how those same Arabic words were used in the hadith (such as the claims that the word alaqah meant a "leech-like substance", that a mudghah is not merely a small piece of meat, but one that has been chewed).

The Role of the Female Gamete

The Qur'an never explicitly claims that the female parent contributes genetic material. It is merely the assumption, and an assumption only, of Muslims that 'nutfatun amshaajin' (mixed drop or mingled sperm) includes the female gamete.

The term ‘nutfatun amshaajin’ could just as easily refer to the sperm-menstrual blood union of Aristotle and the ancient Indian embryologists, or the two sperm hypothesis of Hippocrates and Galen, or even the readily observed mingling of semen and vaginal discharge during sexual intercourse. In other words, the fact the Qur'an does not explicitly state that ‘nutfatun amshaajin’ contains the ovum, together with the existence of other possible explanations, means that it is illogical to assume the former and not the latter.

The insistence that it explains the former is pure conjecture devoid of evidence, and constitutes the logical fallacy of equivocation, and its adoption is merely wishful thinking or the Islamic art of 'reinterpretation after the fact.’

One might contend that the Qur'an does not claim a role for the ovum at all, or is even ignorant of its existence.

Muslims claim that the Qur'an correctly states that the sex of the progeny is determined by the sperm from the male parent, based on verses 53:45-46.

There are only two logical explanations of nutfatin itha tumna; that it is the sperm emitted, or the blastocyst (i.e. zygote) implanted. If it is the latter, Muslims have no case to argue that the Qur'an correctly states that gender is determined by the sperm of the male parent. Hence, nutfatin itha tumna must refer to the sperm emitted.

It is possible the Qur'anic verses 53:45-46 state that the male and female progenies, and not merely the genders, are created from the sperm. This is a possibility totally discounted by Muslims without evidence and suggests a biased interpretation of the verses in light of modern facts. For where is the mention of the ovum? Not in these verses nor anywhere else in the Qur'an.

In fact, the Qur'an itself provides the evidence of its doctrinal omission or rejection of the role of the ovum in procreation, for verse 2:223 states that wives are tilth. This is saying they are like the earth receiving the zygote (i.e. seed) from the male.

Therefore, if read in the context of verse 2:223, ‘nutfatun amshaajin’ cannot contain the ovum because tilth does not contribute genetic material to the development of the seed (i.e. zygote), and must mean the semen mingled with some unspecified non-genetic material-contributing female secretion.

In light of these facts, backed by the Qur'anic verses, it is apparent that the Qur'an’s view of human conception and reproduction is that the male parent contributes the diploid seed (nutfatin itha tumna) and the female parent, as tilth, merely contributes the environment and nutrients for the growth and development of this diploid seed.

Some other common arguments used by proponents of QEP concerning the nutfah stage are debunked in the article Greek and Jewish Ideas about Reproduction in the Quran and Hadith.

It is particularly interesting that verses 77:20-22 strongly imply that it is semen that is stored in the womb and developed into the embryo, as the Jews and Greeks believed.

Verses 20-21 closely parallel 23:13, which too says We placed it (jaAAalnahu) in a safe place (qararin makeen), and uses the word nutfah instead of maa' maheenin (liquid disdained). The 'hu' ending to jaAAalnahu can mean him or it, and probably means the former in 23:13. However, 77:20 uses the 2nd person "you", so the latter meaning, 'it' is clearly intended in the next verse, in reference to the liquid.

The 'alaqah stage

Those who claim that 'alaqah is used in the sense of a clinging thing in the Qur'an should consider that the embryo does not cease to be attached to the uterine wall when the musculo-skeletal system begins to develop around the 5th week. Yet the Qur'anic stages appear to describe a transition between a succession of states.

Apologists who are fond of leech metaphors should consider that unlike a leech, which simply sucks blood from its host, the embryo circulates and exchanges blood and waste products with its mother.^[1] A leech has many characteristics such as size, behaviour, shape, color, appearance. Why would the author use 'alaqah intending such a metaphorical meaning when his listeners could not be expected to know in what respect the analogy applies? It is a typical Texan Sharpshooter fallacy of apologists to choose one characteristic, shape, to an arbitrarily very limited degree find a similarity with an embryo, and draw any conclusions, particularly as the early embryo passes through a wide range of shapes and is itself a biological organism. Moreover, such apologetics have to conveniently ignore the embryo's yolk sac when depicting the embryo.

Given that one of the meanings of 'alaqah is congealed blood, which was also the understanding given in numerous tafsirs, it is most unwise to use a word with such a biological meaning to describe a biological process if that meaning was not the intention. A perfect author would avoid arousing any such suspicion of inaccurate biology with his choice of words.

The Dust Stage

These verses form the basis for the QEP.

These verses clearly delineate the stages of the QEP as thus:

1. Dust/wet earth/clay
2. Nutfah (Believed to be sperm)
3. Alaqa (leech, clot, clinging thing)
4. Mudgha (lump of meat, partly formed and partly unformed)
5. Izhaam/Aitham (bones)
6. Izhaam covered with Lahm (muscles and flesh)
7. Another creation (fetus?)

Muslims all conveniently ignore the first stage which is ‘DUST’. What does it correspond to in the modern Embryology? We know some would claim the dust to be metaphorical. Where is the evidence for that? If the dust is metaphorical, then the other stages should also be metaphorical, in the absence of evidence to differentiate between metaphorical and literal phrases.

The evidence that ‘dust’ is not metaphorical is the word ‘then’ or ‘thumma’ linking dust and sperm. This is the same word linking various stages in the QEP sequence of events. To arbitrary assume that this word now no longer means an immediate follow-on to the next stage is disingenuous and devoid of explanatory evidence.

Some Muslims will argue that the dust refers to the catalytic stage of clay in the first stage of abiogenesis. However, this is in error because there are numerous, literally eons length, steps between this clay-catalysis stage and the creation of humans. Secondly, the verse implies that man was made from clay, giving the impression clay was a building block and not a catalytic compound. Therefore, this clay-catalysis notion is nonsensical and debunked.

The Missing Stages

Most QEP proponents either conveniently omit the embarrassing verse 40:67 or dishonestly quote only the fragment supporting their case.

Those QEP proponents who omit this verse are Keith Moore, Maurice Bucaille, Sharif Kaf Al-Ghazal, Nadeem Arif Najmi and Omar Abdul Rehman. Only Ibrahim Syed quotes the verse, but only up to the alaqa stage. Zakir Naik references it in a footnote, glossing over the ‘missing stages’, while Sulayman Gani quotes the verse in full, but glosses over the missing stages.

This shows that the Qur'an can’t even get its embryology stages correct. Some might view 40:67 to ‘contradict’ the other embryology verses as it states clearly and plainly that the child is formed straight after the alaqa stage.

The Formation of Bone

There is a clear mistake in the QEP idea of the formation of bone. Drs Needham and Needbeer of freethoughtmecca explain this well and we defer to their expertise.

Unless and until a Muslim can adequately explain why the syntax of stage transformation is somehow different in the izhaam stage compared to all the other stages, one must logically conclude that the Qur'an is in error in believing that the mudgha turned totally into izhaam.

Some may simply say that the syntax allows both interpretations, i.e. khalaqna can mean made into or made within. However, we're still to see a Muslim provide proof of this assertion. It is easy to make assertions. Backing them up with evidence is another matter. Therefore, in the failure of evidence otherwise, the conclusion must be that the syntax of verse 23:12-14 must reveal the QEP to be in error.

Secondly, they have to explain why the author(s) of the Qur'an was deficient in their language and forgot to mention cartilage (ghudhroof)^[2] but bone (izhaam).^[3]

Thirdly, muscle and bone (or their precursors) develop contemporaneously, although muscle begins developing before cartilage and bone. Therefore, there is no scientific basis for the QEP proposition of a stage in which bone is later covered with flesh after its own formation. Muscles begin developing in week four. There are 40 pairs of developing muscles in the five-week embryo, and they begin to move by week six when the skeletal system is still totally cartilage which forms in week five or six. By week seven, the muscles and nerves begin work together, when ossification (i.e. bone formation) begins.

It can be argued that since cartilage does not begin forming until week five or six and muscles begin forming in the fourth week, the Qur'anic verse 23:14 got the embryology completely reversed, and therefore, incorrect.

Here is the scientific evidence for the contemporaneous development of cartilage/bone and muscles:

Ossification (in upper limb) occurs at the end of the 7th week. - The Developing Human, 6th Edition Clinically Oriented Embryology Keith L. Moore, Ph..D., FIAC, FRSM T.V.N. Persaud, M.D., Ph.D., D.Sc., FRCPath W.B. Saunders Company (Philadelphia), 1998 p. 96

According to Rugh in Conception to Birth Roberts Rugh, Ph.D., Landrum B. Shettles, Ph.D., M.D. Harper & Row, (New York), 1971, muscles appear in pelvis by 6th week (p 43). Movement of the muscles is being controlled by the nervous system by the 6th week (p 34). All of the muscle blocks have appeared by day 36 after conception (p 46).

Thus bone appears after muscles have formed.

Even if we were to accept that the Qur'an was only referring to precursors of bone and not bone itself, even though it used the Arabic word for bone, izhaam, the embryology is still wrong.

Muscle precursors begin developing into muscle soon after mesenchymal (skeletal) condensation.^[4]

Muscle forms contemporaneously with cartilage formation and is not delayed until bone has formed. Muscle development starts on Day 28.^[5]

Building blocks are present for 40 pairs of muscles, which are located from the base of the skull to the bottom of the spinal column. Day 28 after conception (Rugh, p 35) Muscles appear in the pelvic region. Day 31 after conception (Rugh, p 43) All of the muscle blocks have appeared. Day 36 after conception (Rugh, p 46) Muscular layers of the stomach, esophagus, and intestines begin to proliferate. Day 56 after conception (Rugh, p 53) The first indication of limb musculature is observed. 7th week of development (Sadler, 7th edition, p 168)

Cartilage first appears in week 5.^[6] But the cartilage skeleton begins forming by week 6.^[7]

Thus, when the bone precursors were developing, muscles were also developing at the same time. The cartilage model of the skeleton begins developing by week 6^[7] and is only developed by the 7th week.^[8]

Mesenchymal models of the bones in the limbs undergo chondrification to form hyaline cartilage. Week 6 (Moore: The Developing Human, 6th ed., p. 420, fig. 15-15D)

At this time, all the muscle blocks have already appeared. (Rugh p 46)

Thus, Keith Moore is wrong. Muscles do not take their positions around the bone forms at the end of the seventh week and during the eighth week. All the muscle blocks have already appeared around the developing skeleton by day 36 – i.e. early week 5. Bone and Muscle develop contemporaneously. In fact, muscle appears before bone and around the same time as the cartilage precursor.

A week 6 embryo (Carnegie Stage 16) already has musculature when the cartilage is forming.

A very detailed account of musculo-skeletal development in the human limb by clinical-geneticist Robert Jan Galjaard can be read online.^[9][10]It details that muscle precursor cells migrate from the somites into the limb buds (ca. day 26), well before the condensing core of mesenchyme has started to chondrify into cartilage bone models in the upper part of the limb (ca. day 37), followed by the lower part (ca. day 41). The muscle precursor cells aggregate around these cores and have grouped into distinct muscle masses by day 41.

Furthermore, Lane's Lexicon gives no indication that lahm means muscles specifically rather than flesh in general.^[11][12] Thus the QEP is even more inaccurate as it suggests that there is a stage when the bones are unclothed without any kind of flesh. We have more evidence supporting this interpretation elsewhere in the Qur'an. Verse 2:259 uses the same Arabic words as does 23:14 for 'bones', 'clothed' and 'flesh' to describe the resurrection of a donkey which had been dead for 100 years. Verse 22:5 (see quote in next section) suggests that embryological development has similarities with resurrection.

The resurrected donkey's bones clearly had no flesh on them (were unclothed), and then Allah clothed them. This rather suggests that when the same words are used in 23:14 to describe the developing fetus, the author had in mind a small bare skeleton, which is then clothed with flesh.

The End of Cell Differentiation

Proponents of the QEP state that mudgha stage in which the phrase “partly formed and partly unformed” or “shaped and shapeless” refers to the incomplete cell differentiation observed in this stage.

Sadly for these Muslims, some of whom are embryologists and medical doctors and so should know better, this claim is not backed by the scientific evidence.

Remembering that this mudgha stage occurs before the izham stage, it must occur before week six, when the progeny is still in the “embryo” stage. However, modern embryologists know that cell differentiation occurs well before the ‘mudgha’ stage and well into the “fetal” stage. Hence the QEP claim must be incorrect.

The Beginning of the Fetal Stage

Muslims claim that the Qur'an correctly denotes the start of the Fetal stage by referring to the creation of ‘another creation’ after the izham/lahm (bone clothed with flesh) stage which supposedly occurs at week eight.

An experienced embryologist would know that the delineation of the embryo and fetal stages is arbitrary.

The Least Period of Conception

Some Muslims claim that the Qur'an correctly states that the least period of conception is 6 months. They base this claim on two verses.

Dr. Omar Abdul Rehman claims that ‘the two texts taken together leave only six months (22 weeks i.e., five and half Gregorian months are equal to about six lunar months. of pregnancy).’ Here, Dr. Abdul Rehman’s sleight of hand to fit 22 weeks into six lunar months is ludicrous as each lunar month consists of four weeks, while five and a half Gregorian months consist of about 23.8 weeks.

Dr. Al-Ghazal also claims that according to ‘scientific facts’ the least period of conception is 22 weeks.

Even assuming the arbitrary claim by Drs Al-Ghazal and Abdul Rehman of 22 weeks, being the ‘most cases’ scenario (patently false according to medical statistics – see below), one is left with the conclusion that the Qur'an is still in error as six lunar months is 24 weeks, not 22 weeks.

This two-week difference is very important to the development and survivability of the fetus. Hence, it should not be summarily dismissed and rounded to the nearest month. If anything, it should be rounded to five lunar months, not six.

Regardless, the claim of six lunar months or 22 weeks as the least period of conception or ‘minimum period for fetal viability’ is unsupported by modern medical science.

Thus, it can be seen that the minimum period of fetal viability has changed, at least in recent history. It was never 22 weeks or 6 lunar months prior to the era of modern medicine, being likely to have been at least 30 weeks. Now, it has shrunk to only 19 weeks in countries with advanced pediatric medicine. We would suggest the minimum period of fetal viability in many third-world countries would still be around 30 weeks. Thus, the QEP proposition of the least period of conception is false.

Conclusion

The Qur'anic Embryology Pseudoscience can be seen to be false due to the following points:

1. The Qur'an itself omits mention of the ovum in human reproduction, with doctrinal evidence that it regards the progeny to be the resulting union between the seed from the male parent and the female parent as tilth. As tilth do not provide genetic material to the seed, it is abundantly clear that the Qur'an regards the nutfah (semen) as the diploid seed. Moreover, the choice of the words nutfah (small amount of liquid) and maa' maheenin (water/liquid disdained) in key passages indicate a belief that the embryo is formed out of semen, with no knowledge of the sperm cell.

2. The Qur'an includes an initial dust stage that cannot be reconciled with modern embryology.

3. The missing stages of verse 40:67 contradict the other embryology verses.

4. The stage of bone and flesh formation is in error, even assuming that izhaam means both bone and cartilage.

5. The Qur'anic view of cell differentiation at the Mudgha stage is incorrect, as modern embryology has discovered cell differentiation occurring before and after the putative ‘Mudgha’ stage.

6. The QEP claim that Qur'an correctly predicted the beginning of the fetal stage is debunked because the transition between the embryo and the fetus is arbitrary.

7. The QEP claim that the Qur'an correctly states the least period of conception at 24 weeks is in error, as according to modern medical knowledge this period is closer to 21-22 weeks or even less with advanced medical science, and at least 30 weeks without modern medical assistance.

See Also

• Embryology - A hub page that leads to other articles related to Embryology
• Qur'an Describes Gender Determination By Sperm

External Links

• Qur'anic Embryology - Dr. Yusuf Needham and Dr. Butrus Needbeer, FreeThought Mecca
• Embryology in the Qur'an - Dr. Lactantius, Answering Islam
• Islamic embryology: overblown balderdash - Dr. PZ Myers' response to Hamza Andreas Tzortzis’ paper, Embryology in the Qur’an

References