Sounds very similar to what Salman Rushdie said; many of the stories were lifted almost word for word by the desert Christians (can't remember the name they were called) where gospels were adjusted to desert life (Jesus being born in an oasis under a palm tree).
Well the context is of course very difficult to recreate, but the exact example you mentioned is probably somehow an adaptation from
the Pseudo-Matthew Gospel (also known as
the Infancy-Gospel of Matthew). I guess most in here knows about it, but here it is anyhow
And it came to pass on the third day of their journey, while they were walking, that the blessed Mary was fatigued by the excessive heat of the sun in the desert; and seeing a palm tree, she said to Joseph: Let me rest a little under the shade of this tree. Joseph therefore made haste, and led her to the palm, and made her come down from her beast. And as the blessed Mary was sitting there, she looked up to the foliage of the palm, and saw it full of fruit, and said to Joseph: I wish it were possible to get some of the fruit of this palm. And Joseph said to her: I wonder that thou sayest this, when thou seest how high the palm tree is; and that thou thinkest of eating of its fruit. I am thinking more of the want of water, because the skins are now empty, and we have none wherewith to refresh ourselves and our cattle. Then the child Jesus, with a joyful countenance, reposing in the bosom of His mother, said to the palm: O tree, bend thy branches, and refresh my mother with thy fruit. And immediately at these words the palm bent its top down to the very feet of the blessed Mary; and they gathered from it fruit, with which they were all refreshed. And after they had gathered all its fruit, it remained bent down, waiting the order to rise from Him who bad commanded it to stoop. Then Jesus said to it: Raise thyself, O palm tree, and be strong, and be the companion of my trees, which are in the paradise of my Father; and open from thy roots a vein of water which has been hid in the earth, and let the waters flow, so that we may be satisfied from thee. And it rose up immediately, and at its root there began to come forth a spring of water exceedingly clear and cool and sparkling. And when they saw the spring of water, they rejoiced with great joy, and were satisfied, themselves and all their cattle and their beasts. Wherefore they gave thanks to God. (
The Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew, Chapter 30)
What I meant about the embryology is that it's actually to give the qur'an to much credit to argue that the ideas established in the qur'an is inherited from the Greco-Roman medical writers, and besides it's not likely that thats what happened. It's more likely that it's presenting the common cultural perspective on embryology among the arabs of the sixth-seventh century. To acknowledge the Greek influence is to paraphrase middle age muslim scholars who tried to establish an agreement between the qur'an and for instans Galen. The knowledge a midwife could get from practicing midwifery should not be underrated. In fact midwives might have been a partial source for what the Greek medical writers knew about several issues especially related to females.
Another passage from the Niddah 31 shows the broad perspective of the imagination of Antique and Late Antique people. A similar notion can be found within Greek medical tradition:
Our Rabbis taught: There are three partners in man, the Holy One, blessed be He, his father and his mother. His father supplies the semen of the white substance out of which are formed the child's bones, sinews, nails, the brain in his head and the white in his eye; his mother supplies the semen of the red substance out of which is formed his skin, flesh, hair, blood14 and the black of his eye (Niddah 31b (Source:
Babylonian Talmud))
Topic: Hassan and "Scientific Miracles in the Qur'an?"