Human Senses Miracle in the Quran
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WikiIslam Archive,
Archives of the first iteration of WikiIslam, prior to acquisition and revamp by Ex-Muslims of North America
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Some Islamic apologists claim that the primitive phrase "we made him hearing and seeing" that was easy to say in the 7th century, is a scientific miracle.
"Miracle"
Hearing is one of the first senses to develop in a fetus. A baby can hear its mother's voice long before it is born. Vision comes at a latter stage. This was only known recently. However the Quran insists that God created our hearing before our vision.
[Quran 76.2] We created man from a fertilizing sperm, to test him; and We made him hearing and seeing.
[Quran 23.78] It is He who produced for you the hearing, and the eyesight, and the feelings. But little gratitude you show.
The Quran always refers to the "hearing" before the "seeing" which turned out to be their actual order of creation.
How could an illiterate man who lived 1400 years ago have known that hearing develops before vision?
The miracle is called "human senses", but the verses mentioned only 2 out of 5 human senses, so as a description of the human senses, the verses failed.
Analysis
The vers 76:2 doesn't explicitly say that hearing comes before seeing:
Verily, We have created man from Nutfah drops of mixed semen (discharge of man and woman), in order to try him, so We made him hearer, seer. (سميعا بصيرا)
The two words سميعا and بصيرا are mentioned one after the other, without "then". So it means that the human is both seeing and both hearing.
The second verse also doesn't explicitly say that hearing comes before seeing:
It is He, Who has created for you (the sense of) hearing (ears), sight (eyes), and hearts (understanding) (السمع والأبصار والأفئدة) . Little thanks you give.
Again the words are connected by "and" (و, wa), not by "then". And heart is mentioned last. Does baby not have a heart before it starts seeing?
Also it was not that hard in the 7th century to guess that the baby can't see out of the woman, but maybe it can hear.
And the verse is a scientific error, because according to science the development of hearing and seeing is completely natural and it is not "created" by a supernatural being.
