Three Veils of Darkness

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- Siunaa Maailmaa
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Three Veils of Darkness
OP - February 01, 2014, 05:22 PM

"He creates you, in the wombs of your mothers, in stages, one after the other, in three darkness."
39:6

1. Abdominal wall
2. Uterine wall
3. Amniotic sac

How could have Muhammad known?

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Reply #1 - February 01, 2014, 05:37 PM

Because people had been cutting each other and animals up for a long time and they had eyes and brains?

Quote
Cesarean section has been part of human culture since ancient times and there are tales in both Western and non-Western cultures of this procedure resulting in live mothers and offspring. According to Greek mythology Apollo removed Asclepius, founder of the famous cult of religious medicine, from his mother's abdomen. Numerous references to cesarean section appear in ancient Hindu, Egyptian, Grecian, Roman, and other European folklore. Ancient Chinese etchings depict the procedure on apparently living women. The Mischnagoth and Talmud prohibited primogeniture when twins were born by cesarean section and waived the purification rituals for women delivered by surgery.

https://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/cesarean/preface.html

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Reply #2 - February 01, 2014, 05:45 PM

Are you just trolling us op? There's many layers to the human body. Cherry picking 3 and playing with the definition of a layer is easy for a miracle claimer. You could also pick out 4, 5, 6 etc. layers and justify them.

For example just take this justification from tafsir-al-jalalayn http://www.altafsir.com/Tafasir.asp?tMadhNo=0&tTafsirNo=74&tSoraNo=39&tAyahNo=6&tDisplay=yes&UserProfile=0&LanguageId=2

He created you from a single soul, namely, Adam, then made from it its mate, Eve; and He sent down for you of the cattle, [of] camels, cows, small cattle, sheep and goats, eight kinds, of each kind a male and a female — as He makes clear in sūrat al-An‘ām [Q. 6:143f.]. He creates you in your mothers’ wombs, creation after creation, that is to say, as a sperm-drop, then a blood clot, then a foetus, in a threefold darkness, that is, the darkness of the belly, that of the womb and that of the placenta. That is God, your Lord. To Him belongs [all] sovereignty. There is no god except Him. Why then are you being turned away?, from worshipping Him to worshipping [things] other than Him?

Something so unspecific as 'three veils of darkness' can have any number of meanings. Interpolation /=/ miracle.
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Reply #3 - February 01, 2014, 05:52 PM

I'm sorry if I sounded like a troll.

I ask many stupid questions frequently.
I am curious, that's why I ask many questions.
I am overly curious, that's why I ask stupid questions.
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Reply #4 - February 01, 2014, 06:21 PM

Quote from: RecRoom on February 01, 2014, 05:45 PM
Are you just trolling us op? There's many layers to the human body. Cherry picking 3 and playing with the definition of a layer is easy for a miracle claimer. You could also pick out 4, 5, 6 etc. layers and justify them.

For example just take this justification from tafsir-al-jalalayn http://www.altafsir.com/Tafasir.asp?tMadhNo=0&tTafsirNo=74&tSoraNo=39&tAyahNo=6&tDisplay=yes&UserProfile=0&LanguageId=2

He created you from a single soul, namely, Adam, then made from it its mate, Eve; and He sent down for you of the cattle, [of] camels, cows, small cattle, sheep and goats, eight kinds, of each kind a male and a female — as He makes clear in sūrat al-An‘ām [Q. 6:143f.]. He creates you in your mothers’ wombs, creation after creation, that is to say, as a sperm-drop, then a blood clot, then a foetus, in a threefold darkness, that is, the darkness of the belly, that of the womb and that of the placenta. That is God, your Lord. To Him belongs [all] sovereignty. There is no god except Him. Why then are you being turned away?, from worshipping Him to worshipping [things] other than Him?

Something so unspecific as 'three veils of darkness' can have any number of meanings. Interpolation /=/ miracle.

What could darkness of placenta mean?
Also, are there more than those three "veils of darkness" which are as important as the three already mentioned (abdominal wall, uterine wall and amniotic sac) and fit the description as well as the three already mentioned? For moi, how likely it is that Muhammad would have cut some pregnant woman open and researched how the baby is formed?
Was there knowledge of abdominal wall, uterine wall and amniotic sac in Arabia during Mo's times?

I ask many stupid questions frequently.
I am curious, that's why I ask many questions.
I am overly curious, that's why I ask stupid questions.
I lack patience, that's why I ask frequently.
So forgive me and answer me
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Reply #5 - February 01, 2014, 06:44 PM

Do you know what these structures even are? For example, the abdominal wall is just a generalization representing the many layers from the skin to the internal organs. It's not in an of itself a homogenous 'layer'.

This picture might help to educate you on the other features:

http://cnx.org/content/m46319/latest/2910_The_Placenta-02.jpg

I see more than 3 veils of darkness.

I know that wikiislam can be questionable but they claim that galen taught there were 3 layers to the womb. Considering many of the mohammads claims in and outside the quran (hadiths) concur with Galen it might be a reasonable explanation. Could anyone confirm this?
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Reply #6 - February 01, 2014, 06:50 PM

I'm not fully sure what they mean because I couldn't find Finnish articles about them.
But I think I understood most of it. If Galen claimed that there are 3 layers to the womb it would be very meaningful obviously.

I ask many stupid questions frequently.
I am curious, that's why I ask many questions.
I am overly curious, that's why I ask stupid questions.
I lack patience, that's why I ask frequently.
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Reply #7 - February 01, 2014, 07:16 PM

It looks like galen did teach this, at least from a quick Google search finding obscure books

http://books.google.com/books?id=S7w0AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA1569&lpg=PA1569&dq=chorion,+allantois,+and+amnion+and+Galen.&source=bl&ots=ujsEhl2Nzw&sig=zismGFLQvG2y66JoJIh98aUhTu0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=UkftUvPyCqe_sQSP4oLgDg&ved=0CCMQ6AEwADgK#v=onepage&q=chorion%2C%20allantois%2C%20and%20amnion%20and%20Galen.&f=false

"Galen described, as existing in the ovum, an external tunic, which he called the chorion; a second belonging to the featus itself, called by him the amnion; and a third lying between the two former, and connected with the urinary bladder, through the medium of the urachus, which he denominated the allatiois"
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Reply #8 - February 01, 2014, 08:48 PM

So Galen's supposed 3 veils of darkness are?:

-Chorion
-Amnion
-Allatiois (did you mean allantois, for I couldn't find anything with allatiois)

Do they fit "veils of darkness"? The text about those was too hard and I couldn't find anything in my native language. So can you explain them little bit?

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I am overly curious, that's why I ask stupid questions.
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Reply #9 - February 01, 2014, 08:52 PM

I want to point out that absolutely dissection occurred, in animals, of a certainty, in any ancient time. Unborn animals are a delicacy in many cultures.

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Reply #10 - February 01, 2014, 09:31 PM

Quote from: Siunaa Maailmaa on February 01, 2014, 08:48 PM
So Galen's supposed 3 veils of darkness are?:

-Chorion
-Amnion
-Allatiois (did you mean allantois, for I couldn't find anything with allatiois)

Do they fit "veils of darkness"? The text about those was too hard and I couldn't find anything in my native language. So can you explain them little bit?

Let's be clear, "3 veils of darkness" is an ambiguous statement. I don't think anyone through out the ages used that terminology so it could refer to anything. Second, I gave you a link to the book discussing the findings of galen (and others).

As for the allantiois, I did mean allantois (you'll see it spelled correctly if you read the passage I linked). My bad, I misspelled it.

Regarding 'do these fit', my answer is why not? Galen proposed 3 layers of the womb in regards to fetal development. That's the big take away. The problem is that whats stated in the quran is so ambiguous that it could mean anything from what galen asserts to the interpretation from various tafsir like in al jalalayn to something completely idiotic like literally mohammad thought that darkness was an actual thing that had 3 divisions.
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Reply #11 - February 01, 2014, 09:58 PM

Yeah, I read your link. Thank you for that but I had problems understanding some of it, so that's why.
I know these claims are very unlike to be true and the more I read the more I find the Quran to be a book, which has manipulation techniques such as hell, "Then how do ye not see" - "Indeed" - "Clear signs" and other similar strong sayings to make you doubt, some quite round claims that say alot without actually saying anything and some passages that are quite heavily rooted to that exact historical context, but these claims of miracles haunt me and I have even seen nightmares about Islam. So that is why I want to check these claims quite carefully to take the doubt away from my subconcious mind.

I ask many stupid questions frequently.
I am curious, that's why I ask many questions.
I am overly curious, that's why I ask stupid questions.
I lack patience, that's why I ask frequently.
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Reply #12 - February 01, 2014, 10:06 PM

I think you are right, there are quite a few manipulative phrases throughout the Quran that make it clear that you are supposed to just believe, suspending disbelief, or else you are lost. It is a technique used by abusers, too. To make you feel stupid, when you are simply thinking critically. It is supposed to shut down your critical questioning, by introducing doubts about your own intelligence or intentions.

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Reply #13 - February 01, 2014, 11:57 PM

Quote from: three on February 01, 2014, 08:52 PM
I want to point out that absurdity

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Reply #14 - February 02, 2014, 12:32 AM

Quote from: Siunaa Maailmaa on February 01, 2014, 05:22 PM
How could have Muhammad known?

Because allah told Gabriel and Gabriel told him!
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Reply #15 - February 02, 2014, 09:46 AM

Siunaa

You still don't seem to get that you cannot abstract fragments from texts, and then try to understand those fragments in splendid isolation from their context by importing something entirely extraneous. That's not a reasonable, valid or fruitful hermeneutic approach - and you don't seem to have the faintest beginnings of an idea of how to approach the text.

Per Arberry:

He created the heavens and the earth in truth, wrapping the night about the day, and the day about the night:
and He has subjected the sun and the moon, each of them running to a stated term.
Is not He the all-mighty, the all-forgiving?
He created you of a single soul, then from it He appointed its mate;
and he sent down to you of the cattle eight couples.
He creates you in your mothers' wombs
creation after creation in threefold shadows.
That then is God your lord.

It's poetry and metaphor. Don't overcomplicate it.
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Reply #16 - February 02, 2014, 12:19 PM

Quote
It's poetry and metaphor. Don't overcomplicate it.

But very probably using generalised knowledge - from Galen and actual experience of cutting up animals and humans - not the Angel Gabriel hanging out with uncle mo in a cave around a fire smoking stuff.

When you are a Bear of Very Little Brain, and you Think of Things, you find sometimes that a Thing which seemed very Thingish inside you is quite different when it gets out into the open and has other people looking at it.

A.A. Milne,

"We cannot slaughter each other out of the human impasse"
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Re: Three Veils of Darkness
Reply #17 - February 02, 2014, 02:20 PM

Quote from: moi on February 02, 2014, 12:19 PM
But very probably using generalised knowledge - from Galen and actual experience of cutting up animals and humans - not the Angel Gabriel hanging out with uncle mo in a cave around a fire smoking stuff.

Possibly - altho' the logic of the passage is God the creator of heavens-earth-night-day-sun-moon-soul of man-man's mate-the individual soul in the womb- hence, worship God the creator.

That said, I've left out the really odd element - the 8 pairs of cows, that make absolutely no sense, to me at any rate, in context, and are quite possibly the real textual clue in getting to grips with the passage; sadly, doing so is beyond my competence.
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