Embryology in Islamic Scripture: Difference between revisions

This article focuses on what the [[Islam and Scripture|Islamic texts]] tell us in regards to [[embryology]], rather than the apologetic spin.

Here we find the three primary stages of embryonic development as defined by the Qur’an. There is a “seed,” “drop” or “semen” phase (in Arabic, “nutfah”), followed by a “clot” or “leach-like clot” phase (in Arabic, “alaqah”), followed finally by a “morsel of flesh” or “chewed lump” phase (in Arabic, “mudghah”).  

#The embryo spends 40 days as a drop of sperm or seed.  

#The embryo then spends another 40 days as a “clot” or a “leech-like clot” of blood.  

#The embryo then spends another 40 days as a “lump of flesh.”  

#During which the gender of the child is assigned by an angel at Allah’s direction.  

 

 

Taken together, the three phases of Islamic embryology take 120 days to go from conception to the point where the embryo becomes a fetus (i.e. an identifiable human baby), or right around 17 weeks. Does this reflect what we now know about embryonic development?

 

In fact, there are no developmental milestones which can be mapped to the three 40 day periods required by Islamic embryology, even though they are stressed in several authoritative ahadith.  

'''Conclusion:''' The hadith is demonstrably wrong concerning the timing of embryologic development.  

The three Islamic phases of development are described in a very visual way, allowing for an informed evaluation of the accuracy of those descriptions. This might be expected if for no other reason than that during the Prophet’s day, there was not even the idea of a microscope, and any descriptions offered would reasonably be of objects that were visible to an unaided eye. And this is exactly what we find.  

And certainly, each of the three Islamic stages is described at a visible level of scale. A drop of seed, a clot of blood, a lump of flesh; all of them are objects of a size with which the ancient Arabs would have been familiar.  

Instead, the Qur’an tells us that the “drop of seed” remains exactly that (a drop of seed) for the entire nutfah phase (40 days according to Bukhari and Muslim). What actually IS happening during those 40 days, and how might it be said to resemble a “drop of seed?”

The actual “drop of seed” provided by the male dissipates within minutes of ejaculation, so even before conception, the literal “drop of seed” no longer exists. The case could certainly be made that the fertilized egg resembles a seed until about day 13 or fourteen, but the “drop” is long gone, replaced with a microscopic egg that moves through a period called the “blastocyst.” But by the beginning of the third week, the embryo has already begun to differentiate into a trilaminar embryo with the three layers of ectoderm, mesoderm, and endoderm. A mere two and a half weeks after conception, the embryo no longer looks anything like a “drop of seed,” while the Islamic tradition indicates that the nutfah stage should last for an additional three weeks.  

The word “alaqah” is a bit more ambiguous than “nutfah,” and so has been translated a bit more flexibly by Islamic apologists. Although consistently translated as a “clot of blood” by multiple translators, there are a handful of instances where it is rendered as “a leech-like clot.” This is the phase that (according to Bukhari and Muslim) should last from about day 41 to day 80 after conception.  

However, rather than a “lump” of anything, this period is one primarily of increasing size for the already fully formed fetus. During this period of time the fetus grows finger and toenails, begins to grow hair, and by the end of it the mother is beginning to feel the child’s movements. At no time during these weeks does the fetus look like anything other than an obvious human being.  

According to multiple ahadith, it is only after the mudghah phase (days 81-120) that an angel of the Lord determines the gender of the baby. But in fact, modern genetics shows that the gender of the baby is determined at the moment of conception, and is therefore already set some four months before Islam asserts the question is even asked of Allah.  

'''Conclusion:''' The authors of the Qur’an and the hadith had no idea as to the genetic nature of gender, and assumed wrongly that it was assigned by Allah months after it was actually determined by genetics. The Islamic model is wrong again.  

==Some Notes on the Interpretations of Dr. Keith Moore==

Dr. Keith L. Moore, Ph.D., F.I.A.C. of the Department of Anatomy, University of Toronto, Canada, has become a favorite of Islamic apologists ever since he accepted an invitation to produce a special edition of his Embryology Text Book specifically for use by Muslim students in Islamic Universities.  

In articles published widely across Islamic web sites, Dr. Moore goes on the record to provide a generous assessment of the Qur’an and hadith in the light of modern knowledge about embryology. But a review of his “analysis” shows the extent to which he had to twist both the Islamic scriptures and modern science in order to get the “facts” to correlate.  

One might speculate on the reasons Dr. Moore might have for this travesty of embryology, but actually the answer is a simple one. He was quite well paid by the Saudi government for the use of his name, and for no real additional work. The textbook he delivered to the Saudi Universities that commissioned the work is titled, "The Developing Human: Clinically Oriented Embryology with Islamic Additions." (ISBN 0-7216-6472-5).

 

 

 

==See Also==

 

[[Category:THHuxley]]