Milk Miracle in the Quran

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Some Islamic apologists claim that the Quran gave us detailed information (that supposedly wasn't available to Muhammad) about how a cow produces milk.

The claim

1400 years ago people thought that milk came from the white fat near the nipples. However today this turned out to be false. Milk is produced in mammary glands which in turn get the nutrients directly from the blood stream. The blood stream gets it nutrients from the digestive system.

[Quran 16.66] And in cattle there is a lesson for you, We give you drink, from their bellies digested food and blood, pure liquid milk for those who drink.

How could an illiterate man who lived 1400 years ago have known that milk comes from the blood stream?


Mistranslation

وَإِنَّ لَكُمْ فِي الأَنْعَامِ لَعِبْرَةً نُّسْقِيكُم مِّمَّا فِي بُطُونِهِ مِن بَيْنِ فَرْثٍ وَدَمٍ لَّبَنًا خَالِصًا سَائِغًا لِلشَّارِبِينَ

And in cattle there is a lesson for you, We give you drink, from their bellies digested food and blood, pure liquid milk for those who drink.


Quran 16:66, translated by miracles-of-quran.com
  • نسقيكم- we [give] you to drink
  • مما - from what
  • في - [is] in
  • بطونه - it's belly
  • من بين - from between
  • فرث - feces [1]
  • ودم - and blood

The word "digested" is not in the verse and the word "food" is also not in the verse. It's feces. And milk is not a mixture of feces and blood.

Let's see other translations:

Muhsin Khan: ..We give you to drink of that which is in their bellies, from between excretions and blood, pure milk; palatable to the drinkers.

Pickthall: ..We give you to drink of that which is in their bellies, from betwixt the refuse and the blood, pure milk palatable to the drinkers.

Sahih International: ..We give you drink from what is in their bellies - between excretion and blood - pure milk, palatable to drinkers.

Yusuf Ali: ..From what is within their bodies between excretions and blood, We produce, for your drink, milk, pure and agreeable to those who drink it.


Also the word "between" (بين) is completely missing in the apologetic translation.

The verse

And indeed, for you in grazing livestock is a lesson. We give you drink from what is in their bellies - between excretion and blood - pure milk, palatable to drinkers.


Quran 16:66 (Sahih International)

Ibn Kathir explained it:

(from between excretions and blood, pure milk;) meaning it is free of blood, and is pure in its whiteness, taste and sweetness. It is between excrement and blood in the belly of the animal, but each of them goes its own way after the food has been fully digested in its stomach. The blood goes to the veins, the milk goes to the udder, the urine goes to the bladder and the feces goes to the anus. None of them gets mixed with another after separating, and none of them is affected by the other.


Ibn Kathir on 16:66

The verse means that in the belly of the cow there is milk, blood and feces and they don't get mixed. It doesn't say that the source of the milk is blood or feces. The milk is between the blood and the feces, not transformed from it.

All Muhammad had to know is that the body of a cow contains milk, blood and feces and notice that they look different and don't seem to get mixed. There is no indication that the author of the verse knew how exactly the milk production works.

Discovery

1400 years ago people thought that milk came from the white fat near the nipples. However today this turned out to be false. Milk is produced in mammary glands which in turn get the nutrients directly from the blood stream. The blood stream gets it nutrients from the digestive system.


People 1400 years ago thought that the milk comes from the udder and they were right. The mammary glands in the udder get their nutrients form the blood, but the blood is not milk. It is not milk until it gets transformed in the udder into milk. Milk comes from the udder, just like they thought.

And the people could have seen that a cow has food on the input and milk, feces, blood on the output, so they could have easily guess that the food somehow gets transformed into those substances. They didn't know how exactly it works, just like the verse gives no indication that the author knew how exactly it works. He only knew that these things are in the cow and don't get mixed in the end.

See also

References

  1. فَرْث ( اسم ): غائِط excrement ; feces https://www.almaany.com/en/dict/ar-en/%d9%81%d8%b1%d8%ab