Sources of Islamic Theories of Reproduction: Difference between revisions

The [[hadith]] contain many statements about fluids from both the man and woman that were believed to form the human embryo. The [[Qur'an|Qur’an]] too says that the embryo is formed from emitted fluid, and in one verse perhaps indicates a mingling of male and female fluids. In this article we shall present new research to trace the origins of each of these ideas at least as far back as the Jewish Talmud and the ancient Greek physicians.

The Prophet [[Muhammad]], who had been a well-traveled merchant, had extensive interactions with Jews in Arabia, and almost certainly with Nestorian Christians, who had large communities in Najran in the south and Hira to the north of the Arabian Peninsula.<ref>J. Stewart, "Nestorian Missionary Enterprise", p.70-74, Edinburgh: T. & T. Clark, 1928</ref><ref>Cyril Glasse, “The New Encyclopedia of Islam”, p.342-343, CA, USA: Altamira, 2001.</ref> Guillaume says of the Nestorians, “Such men were a familiar sight on all the caravan routes of Arabia”.<ref>Alfred Guillaume, “Islam”, p.15, Middlesex: Penguin Books, 1990 (Reprinted)</ref> The Nestorians were based in [[Syria]], where they already possessed and studied the works of Galen, the hugely influential 2^nd century Greek physician.<ref>Allen O. Whipple, “[{{Reference archive|1=http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1965836/pdf/bullnyacadmed00860-0027.pdf|2=2012-07-23}} Role of the Nestorians as the connecting link between Greek and Arab medicine]”, Annals of Medical History 8 (1936) 313-323</ref> This is not to say that the creators of the Qur’an and hadith directly copied from these works, but it will become clear that they were at least indirectly influenced by these widespread ideas.

The word nu<U>t</U>fah is used 12 times in the Qur’an in the following verses, in each case saying much the same thing, that man is [[Creation|created]] from a nu<U>t</U>fah: {{Quran|16|4}}, {{Quran|18|37}}, {{Quran|22|5}}, {{Quran|23|13}}, {{Quran|23|14}}, {{Quran|35|11}}, {{Quran|36|77}}, {{Quran|40|67}}, {{Quran|53|46}}, {{Quran|75|37}}, {{Quran|76|2}}, {{Quran|80|19}}.

The purpose of this section is to demonstrate the influence of ideas from other cultures on the Qur’an and hadith regarding reproduction. It will go without saying that these ideas are inaccurate compared with current [[Islam and Science|scientific]] knowledge of [[reproduction]] and [[embryology]]. All Qur’an [[Quotations|quotes]] are from [[The Holy Quran - Abdullah Yusuf Ali|Yusuf Ali’s translation]].

Now we shall see that this same idea was taught by Galen, the hugely influential 2^nd Century Greek physician. Galen’s main treatise about embryology was called “On Semen”, and his works were studied by Muhammad’s nearby contemporaries in Alexandria, [[Egypt]] and in Gundeshapur, southwestern Syria.<ref>Marshall Clagett, “Greek Science in Antiquity”, pp.180-181, New York: Abelard-Schuman, 1955; Dover, 2001</ref>

The same thing is reported in Berakoth 60a.<ref name="Berakoth 60a"></ref> Notice also a two-semens theory again. In most versions of this hadith the determining factor in resemblance is whose water (m<U>a</U>a i.e. semen) preceded (sabaqa) the other person’s water. In other versions it is whose water is on or upon (‘ala) the other’s, which is closer to various Greek theories in which resemblance or gender is caused by semens prevailing upon each other.<ref>Iain M. Lonie, “The Hippocratic Treatises ‘On generation’, ‘On the nature of the child’, ‘Diseases IV’”, pp.125-126, Berlin; New York: de Gruyter, 1981</ref><ref>See Galen’s description of Strato’s theory of sex determination in “On Semen”, p.183, and De Lacy’s notes on p.242. Galen postulates a semen prevailance theory of resemblance on p.179-181.</ref> In one case (Sahih Muslim, Book 3, number 614), it is gender rather than resemblance that is determined in this way and maniyy is used rather than m<U>a</U>a.

===“Not from all the sperm a fetus is created…”===

 

Desperate for some kind of reference to sperm (rather than merely semen), which was not discovered until the 17^th century, some Islamic apologists point to the following hadith:

{{Quote|Musnad Ahmad, volume 1, page 465|O, Jew , it is created from both ; from a man nutfah and from a woman nutfah}}

Some Islamic apologists get excited by this hadith in the Musnad Ahmad hadith collection, deluding themselves that it is a reference to the sperm and ovum. However, as shown by the ibn Kathir quote above, not only were these understood to be male and female fluids, but this is once again the Galenic two-semens theory. And it’s about to get much worse. What the Islamic apologists are unaware of, or hide, are the next sentences in this hadith. From another translation of the same hadith:

Based on pp.91-93 and p.101, he seems to mean here the thicker male semen, which he says provides some of the material for the fetus as well as “power” or “motion” to the material. He says that the female’s semen provides nutriment to the male semen, and also has a weaker “power”, supplimented by that of her blood, to cause any resemblance of the child to the mother.<ref>Philip De Lacy (editor and translator). “Galen: On Semen (Corpus Medicorum Graecorum 5.3.1.)”, pp.165-167, Berlin: Akademie. Verlag, 1992</ref> On p.87 Galen says about the female semen "for it is thinner than the male semen",<ref>Philip De Lacy (editor and translator). “Galen: On Semen (Corpus Medicorum Graecorum 5.3.1.)”, p.87, Berlin: Akademie. Verlag, 1992</ref> matching the hadith.

Some Islamic apologists have resorted to desperate arguments to find a reference to sperm (not just semen) or the female ovum in the Qur’an. They are refuted below. Qur’an translations are Pickthall’s.

The first line is the apologist's own absurd generalization based on the second line, which is his attempted translation of a definition in the Lisan al-Arab dictionary of classical Arabic.<ref>[http://www.baheth.info/all.jsp?term=%D9%86%D8%B7%D9%81 Lisan Al-Arab dictionary, Book 5, Pages 725]</ref>

Not only has he truncated and mistranslated this sentence, but it is of the definition for the wrong word (na<U>t</U>af – pearls or earrings), which has the same n-t-f root as nu<U>t</U>fah.

His claim has been copied by other Islamic websites, and recently another well-known apologist was foiled in an attempt to evolve the claim further by suggesting that this 'mistaken' generalization actually appears in the Lisan al-Arab definition. Lisan al-Arab’s actual definition of nu<U>t</U>fah is a little amount (qalil, قليل) of water (see beginning of this article). Note that even if we supposed that nu<U>t</U>fah had meant a single drop, a sperm is a discrete object from among many of the same discrete objects, unlike a drop of water, which is an amount of something from a larger amount.

 

This article was originally published on the [http://quranspotlight.wordpress.com/articles/quran-hadith-talmud-galen/ quranspotlight] website. Thank you to [http://www.youtube.com/user/captaindisguise youtuber] and [http://captaindisguise.blogspot.co.uk/ blogger], Captaindisguise for providing the original author with the two Nidda 31a quotes in the “Resemblance of the child to its parents” and “From the man’s nutfah and from the woman’s nutfah” sections. He also provided the two hadiths and link to the Arabic used in the “Al ‘azl and al ghila” section.