2,743
edits
Embryology in the Quran: Difference between revisions
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
→The 'Alaqah Stage
| [checked revision] | [checked revision] |
Lightyears (talk | contribs) |
Lightyears (talk | contribs) |
||
| Line 102: | Line 102: | ||
It would be most unwise for the author of the Quran to use a word that has a specific, widely understood biological meaning to describe a biological process (embryology) if that meaning was not the intention. For the same reason it would be foolish even to use clotted blood merely as a visual metaphor. A perfect author would avoid arousing any such suspicion of inaccurate biology with his choice of words. | It would be most unwise for the author of the Quran to use a word that has a specific, widely understood biological meaning to describe a biological process (embryology) if that meaning was not the intention. For the same reason it would be foolish even to use clotted blood merely as a visual metaphor. A perfect author would avoid arousing any such suspicion of inaccurate biology with his choice of words. | ||
===='Alaqah in pre-Islamic poetry==== | |||
The pre-Islamic poet Zuhayr ibn Abi Sulma used 'alaq in the context of pregnancy, showing that such usage, regardless of its intended meaning, pre-dates the Qur'an. His poem Mu'allaqa has a line describing how al 'alaq discharged from his she-camels as they were having miscarriages on a long journey.<ref>In Arabic, the relevant line of Zuhayr's poem regarding a journey to see his patron, Harim ibn Sinan, reads:<BR> | |||
إليك أعملتها فتلا مرافقها، شهرين يجهض من أرحامها العلق | |||
<BR>It appears on p.245 of volume 1 of the anthology by Muhammad Ibn 'Abd Rabbih (d. 328/940), [https://waqfeya.net/book.php?bid=1120 al-ʿIqd al-Farīd] (The Unique Necklace), 9 vols, eds. Mufid Muhammad Qumayha et al, Beirut, 1983. | |||
<BR>The English translation of this volume by Boullata is very non-literal, glossing the last words as "productive wombs": Ibn ʿAbd Rabbih, The Unique Necklace: Al-ʿIqd al-Farīd, trans. by Issa J. Boullata, Great Books of Islamic Civilization, 3 vols, first edition, Reading, UK: Garnet, 2006, p.200 | |||
</ref> | |||
The relevant words read: yajhudu (يَجْهُضُ) min (مِنْ) arhaamiha (أَرْحَامِهَا) al 'alaq (الْعَلَقُ). Word for word, that is "miscarriaging from their wombs al 'alaq". | |||
Zuhayr died in 609 CE, before Islam, or according to one account, at the age of 100 in 627 CE, with Muhammad meeting him on the day he died.<ref>Clouston, W. A., [https://archive.org/details/arabianpoetryfo00clougoog/page/n55/mode/2up Arabian Poetry for English Readers] Glasgow (private publication), 1881, Introduction p. xliii</ref> | |||
===The Mudghah Stage=== | ===The Mudghah Stage=== | ||