ÞvºÀÛ§ spºÀÛ§ tÛÛ§ ÞT±  

 Embryology in Qur aan

The Holy Qur aan being a revelation of Allah Himself, it studded with a lot of scientific phenomenon's. One of which is about the development of foetus in the uterus. Allah says,

  " We created man from an extract of clay.  Then We made him as a drop in a place of settlement, firmly fixed.  Then We made the drop into an  alaqah  (leech, suspended thing, and blood clot), then We made the alaqah into a  mudghah  (chewed substance)..". - Qur aan 23:12-14.

We'll see about the word  alaqah  . Literally, the Arabic word alaqah has three meanings: (1) leech, (2) suspended thing, and (3) blood clot.

 (i) In comparing a  leech  to an embryo in the alaqah stage, we find similarity between the two as we can see in the figure below.  Also, the embryo at this stage obtains nourishment from the blood of the mother, similar to the leech, which feeds on the blood of others.

(Drawings illustrating the similarities in appearance between a leech and a human embryo at the alaqah stage)

(ii) The second meaning of the word alaqah is " suspended thing ."  This is what we can see in the figures given below. i.e. the suspension of the embryo, during the alaqah stage, in the womb of the mother.

(These diagrams show the suspension of an embryo during the alaqah stage in the womb (uterus) of the mother.)

(iii) The third meaning of the word alaqah is " blood clot ". We find that the external appearance of the embryo and its sacs during the alaqah stage is similar to that of a blood clot.  This is due to the presence of relatively large amounts of blood present in the embryo during this stage

.  ( This figure shows the external appearance of the embryo and its sacs is similar to that of a blood clot, due to the presence of relatively large amounts of blood )

Is it not amazing that all the three meanings of the word 'alaqah' are accurately fixing!

Now about the word  mudghah  . The Arabic word mudghah means "chewed substance." A piece of gum of chewed, we can see the teeth marks in it. At the mudghah stage acquires the appearance of a chewed substance.  This is because of the somites at the back of the embryo that “somewhat resemble teeth marks in a chewed substance 

(Similarity between the appearance of an embryo at the mudghah stage with a piece of gum that has been chewed)

Professor Emeritus Keith L. Moore is one of the world’s most prominent scientists in the fields of anatomy and embryology and is the author of the book entitled The Developing Human, In 1981, during the Seventh Medical Conference in Dammam, Saudi Arabia, Professor Moore said: “It has been a great pleasure for me to help clarify statements in the Qur aan about human development.  It is clear to me that these statements must have come to Muhammad from God, because almost all of this knowledge was not discovered until many centuries later.  This proves to me that Muhammad must have been a messenger of God. ...I find no difficulty in accepting the Qur aan as Word of God. ”

Although Aristotle, the founder of the science of embryology, realized that chick embryos developed in stages from his studies of hen’s eggs in the fourth century B.C., he did not give any details about these stages.  As far as it is known from the history of embryology, little was known about the staging and classification of human embryos until the twentieth century.  For this reason, the descriptions of the human embryo in the Qur aan cannot be based on scientific knowledge in the seventh century.  The only reasonable conclusion is: These descriptions were revealed to Muhammad from God.  He could not have known such details because he was an illiterate man with absolutely no scientific training.”