Sources of Islamic Theories of Reproduction: Difference between revisions

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> While this does not necessitate that the creators of the Qur’an and hadith directly copied from these works, it seems likely that they were, at the very least, indirectly influenced by these widespread ideas.

<center>''This [[timelines|timeline]] shows how [[Embryology in Islamic Scripture|Islamic embryology]], and even the vaguest interpretations of [[Embryology in the Quran|Qur'anic embryology]], <BR>introduced nothing new to [[Islam and Science|science]] and can easily be explained as drawing on previous, inaccurate theories''</center>

|"let us divide the creation of the foetus overall into four periods of time.<BR>''The first'' is that in which. as is seen both in abortions and in dissection, the form of the semen prevails [Arabic nutfah]. At this time, Hippocrates too, the all-marvelous, does not yet call the conformation of the animal a foetus; as we heard just now in the case of semen voided in the sixth day, he still calls it semen. But when it has been filled with blood [Arabic alaqa], and heart, brain and liver are still unarticulated and unshaped yet have by now a certain solidarity and considerable size,<BR>this is ''the second period''; the substance of the foetus has the form of flesh and no longer the form of semen. Accordingly you would find that Hippocrates too no longer calls such a form semen but, as was said, foetus.<BR>''The third period'' follows on this, when, as was said, it is possible to see the three ruling parts clearly and a kind of outline, a silhouette, as it were, of all the other parts [Arabic mudghah]. You will see the conformation of the three ruling parts more clearly, that of the parts of the stomach more dimly, and much more still, that of the limbs. Later on they form "twigs", as Hippocrates expressed it, indicating by the term their similarity to branches.<BR>''The fourth and final period'' is at the stage when all the parts in the limbs have been differentiated; and at this part Hippocrates the marvelous no longer calls the foetus an embryo only, but already a child, too when he says that it jerks and moves as an animal now fully formed."<ref>Corpus Medicorum Graecorum: Galeni de Semine (Galen: On Semen) (Greek text with English trans. Phillip de Lacy, Akademic Verlag, 1992) section I:9:1-10 pp. 92-95, 101</ref>

"... The time has come for nature to articulate the organs precisely and to bring all the parts to completion. Thus it caused flesh to grow on and around all the bones, and at the same time ... it made at the ends of the bones ligaments that bind them to each other, and along their entire length it placed around them on all sides thin membranes, called periosteal, on which it caused flesh to grow."<ref>Corpus Medicorum Graecorum: Galeni de Semine (Galen: On Semen) (Greek text with English trans. Phillip de Lacy, Akademic Verlag, 1992) section I:9:1-10 pp. 92-95, 101</ref>

It appears there is not a single statement contained within the [[Qur'an]] or [[hadith]] literature relating to modern embryology that was not well known through direct observation by the ancient Greek and Indian physicians many centuries before the Qur'an was ever revealed. Moreover, much of what the Qur'an actually does contain pertaining to embryology is scientifically inaccurate.

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…”===

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.