Embryolocy in the Qur'an.
The Qur'an describes the stages of foetal development thus..
Thereafter We made him (the offspring of Adam) as a Nutfah (mixed drops of the male and female sexual discharge and lodged it) in a safe lodging (womb of the woman). Then We made the Nutfah into a clot (Alaqa, a piece of thick coagulated blood), then We made the clot into a little lump of flesh (Mudghah), then We made out of that little lump of flesh bones, then We clothed the bones with flesh, and then We brought it forth as another creation. So blessed be Allah, the Best of Creators.The claim from Moore and others is that the idea of a foetus developing in stages is a modern one, not known outside the Qur'an till the 15th century. However, apart from the fact that the Torah describes six stages of foetal development, and the fact that the Romans had performed Caesarian sections at varying stages of pregnancy and so must have also known about it, the Ancient Greeks were also familiar with the concept.
Writing circa AD 150, Galens wrote on the same subject...
But let us take the account back again to the first conformation of the animal, and in order to make our account orderly and clear, let us divide the creation of the foetus overall into four periods of time. 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, 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. 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. 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 (Arabic ?a new creation?) ...
... 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 [19].
The four stages of foetal development described by Galens correspond to the four stages described by Mohammed in the Qur'an.
Galen's works were translated into Syriac in the 6th century by the Christian priest Sergius of Resh' Aina, a Nestorian. When the Nestorians faced persecution from the mainstream church, they fled to Persia and founded a medical school at Jundishapur. One of the school's most famous graduates was al Harith Ibn Kalada, a contemporary and companion of Mohammed, who would have been familiar with the works of Galens, and other Greek scientists.
Furthermore, Galens got many things wrong, and the Qur'an repeats his mistakes. Ancient Greeks thought that the woman was merely an incubator inside which the semen developed into a foetus by mingling with menstrual blood. They had no knowledge of the role played by ovaries and the Qur'an shows no knowledge of them either. Nor is there any stage at which the embryo resembles a "clot of blood" or a leech. The relationship between the placenta and the uterine wall may be described as "leech like" in that the placenta clings to the uterine wall, but that applies to the entire 9 months of a pregnancy and so can hardly be called a stage of foetal development.
Some handy links for further reading...
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CJ/CJ533.htmlhttp://www.babycentre.co.uk/pregnancy/fetaldevelopment/http://www.faithfreedom.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=49655http://www.faithfreedom.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=26725#26725http://www.arguewitheveryone.com/general-political-discussion/38271-quran-rip-greeks.htmlFun fact of the day - on the acknowledgements page of Keith Moore's text book on Islamic embryology, he lists Osama Bin Laden as a scholar who supported the work.
Topic: Scientific Miracles in the Qur'an?