101 Reasons Why We Left Islam – Chapter 3: Islam and Science – Reason 26
It may shock you to realise that this picture of the embryology process you see in the meme is shared among Muslims who read it and cheer with ‘allahuAkbar’ and ‘SubhanAllah’. Yet, as a researcher and scientist, it is entirely wrong! It is like someone posting a picture of an apple and saying here is an orange, and everyone celebrating the orange for being an apple! So, I had to correct this claim. Here are the verses according to Sahih International. Look out for the words in brackets. These do not exist in the verse but are added by the translators:
Quran 23:13-14: https://legacy.quran.com/23/13-14
Then We placed him as a sperm-drop in a firm lodging. Then We made the sperm-drop into a clinging clot, and We made the clot into a lump [of flesh], and We made [from] the lump, bones, and We covered the bones with flesh; then We developed him into another creation. So blessed is Allah, the best of creators.
First, feel free to read all the different translations of it:
https://corpus.quran.com/translation.jsp?chapter=23&verse=13
https://corpus.quran.com/translation.jsp?chapter=23&verse=14
There are three fundamental mistakes:
1. Allah did not mention the role of the woman’s egg in human reproduction and appears to have no knowledge of it. This is not the only verse that fails to mention the important role of the female egg, but all 49 occurrences of the creation process in the Quran talk about sperm but nothing from the woman. The Quran makes the common misconception that only male semen is the ingredient of creation. Women are just ovens. The human ovum is very small, though visible to the human eye, and was only discovered in 1827. Its role is very important. It is the ovum that decides which sperm goes in and not the first sperm. But Allah only knows what a 7th-century desert dweller knows. At best, the Prophet mistakenly assumed women have some yellow light texture that makes out their semen (see Reason 24).
2. The lump turns into bones. Bones develop from within. Some apologists were so desperate they reinvented this translation to fix this big problem by adding words to Allah’s book. We identified Sahih International, which uses [from], and Shakir uses [in] as they are not found in Allah’s eternally correct book. What is common between those two is that Sahih International was written in 1997 and Shakir in 1958. These were the most recent two tafsirs where we see attempts to fix the errors of the Quran. All the others are pre-1955, with the oldest being 1920.
3. Finally, the bones get covered with flesh. As if to emphasise the mistake in step 2, the Quran goes on to show its lack of knowledge by suggesting after the bones are created, Allah covers the bones with flesh. And this particular point is very hard to explain as the word uses ‘فَكَسَوْنَا” has a very specific meaning in Arabic that means ‘cover / clothed / layer over’. This word cannot be twisted enough to mean anything else.
Now, let us review the same verses and examine carefully steps 2 and 3. How did the lump become bones? How did the bones become covered with flesh?
Now let us review the same verses and examine carefully step 2 and 3. How did the lump become bones? How did the bones get covered with flesh?
Here are the different translations of those two mistakes:
- Sahih International: “… and We made [from] the lump, bones, and We covered the bones with flesh…”
- Pickhall: “… then fashioned We the little lump bones, then clothed the bones with flesh…”
- Yusuf Ali: “… then we made out of that lump bones and clothed the bones with flesh…”
- Shakir: “… We made [in] the lump of flesh bones, then We clothed the bones with flesh…”
- Muhammad Sarwar: “… was turned into a shapeless lump of flesh from which bones were formed. The bones, then, were covered with flesh…”
- Mohsin Khan: “…Then We made out of that little lump of flesh bones, then We clothed the bones with flesh…”
- Arberry: “… We created of the tissue bones then We garmented the bones in flesh…”
The correct process is that around the 6th or 7th week, the cartilage starts developing from within the foetus. It is already part of the foetus. It does not need to be covered with flesh. What about the Tafsir, did they get it wrong too? One thing to note about the classical Tafsirs such as Al-Tabari, Ibn Kathir, and Al-Qurtubi, none of them bothered to focus on the bone part but rather focused on other issues. For example, Ibn Kathir writes a whole page about these verses but passes this part with:
- “(And We clothed the bones with flesh) meaning: We created for that what would cover it, strengthen it, and strengthen it”
That is, it.
But some of the others, more modern, have “tried” to fix this. I have to emphasize “tried” because in the process, they butchered the verse. For example:
Tafsir Muyassar: Then We created the sperm as a clot, meaning: red blood, then after forty days We created the clot as a lump, meaning: a piece of flesh equal to what could be chewed, so We created from the soft lump bones, and covered the bones with flesh, then We created another creation by breathing the spirit into it, so blessed be God, who perfected everything He created.
Tafsir Al-Sa’adi: “{Then We created the semen} that had settled before {a clot} i.e. red blood, after forty days being a sperm, {so We created the clot} after forty days a {Chewed meat is created} i.e. a small piece of meat, as small as it could be chewed due to its smallness. {Then We created (from) the chewed} solid bones, which had entered the flesh, according to the body’s need for them. {So We covered the bones with flesh} meaning: We made the flesh a covering for the bones, just as We made the bones a support for the flesh, and that was in the fortieth day…”
Tafseer Al-Baghawi: “… It was said: There are forty days between every (stage of) creation. (So We clothed the bones with flesh) meaning We clothed him, (Then We created him as another creation) The commentators differed regarding it, and Ibn Abbas said: Mujahid, Al-Sha’bi, Ikrimah, Al-Dahhak, and Abu Al-Aliyah: It is the breathing of the spirit into it. Qatada said: The plant of teeth and hair. Ibn Jurayj narrated on the authority of Mujahid: It is the maturity of youth. On the authority of Al-Hasan, he said: male or female…”
https://quran.com/23:14/tafsirs/ar-tafsir-muyassar (All these are in Arabic, so use the translator)
The conclusion you get from reviewing the Tafsirs is that the scholars had no clue what was going on here. They were filling the gaps with whatever came to mind. So, finally, we go to the Hadith to find a possible fix. But nothing explains the bone part. In summary, all you get is different reiterations of this:
Narrated ‘Abdullah bin Mus’ud: “Allah’s Apostle, the true and truly inspired said, “(The matter of the Creation of) a human being is put together in the womb of the mother in forty days, and then he becomes a clot of thick blood for a similar period, and then a piece of flesh for a similar period.”
https://sunnah.com/search?q=thick+blood+clot+forty+days
Which explains why the Tafsirs went with forty-day process but could not find a way to explain the remaining parts of the verses.
Issue 26.1: Islam failed to identify a woman’s egg as being an integral part of the process. The Quran did not address it, suggesting the woman’s role is just an oven. And if you have any doubt about that, the Prophet in the Hadith above refers to the process as ‘a human being is put together in the womb of the mother in forty days, and then he becomes a clot….etc’.
Issue 26.2: Bones are not created from a lump and then the bones are covered with meat. This description does not match the process. Bones are cartilages that grow from within the meat. From the first instance they appear, they are already surrounded and covered by flesh. Had the Quran not mentioned ‘and/then we covered the bones with flesh.’ This would no longer be an issue. The Prophet was simply mistaken in his understanding of the process and reflected the knowledge that was available back then.
Apologist Excuses:
Issue 26.1: In short, this is presentism. You are imposing the knowledge we have now to judge what would have been said back to them. Had the Quran mentioned women having an egg back then, it is possible the Prophet would have been ridiculed with the suggestion that women are chickens of some sort. Also, the Quran never denied women have a role in the process. Of course, they did.
>> Our response: It is the Islamic Dawah and the Quran that ask us to challenge it for mistakes. And this is a very important emission that is not only linked to this verse. Men put in their dough (semen), and women are responsible for baking it right. The Quran did not have to go all the way as to say the woman has an egg but to say she contributes to the process from her organs/lump/sperm. It would not have been farfetched as the Prophet already mentioned women have some contribution in the form of yellow semen. Giving any credit to women in the process would have been scientifically more accurate and put them on equal footing with men.
Issue 26.2: Many of the translations and even the tafsirs misplaced the use of the letter “ف” by suggesting it means ‘then’. The more accurate term for ‘then’ is “ثُمَّ” which is used at the start of Quran 23:13. Thereafter, the verse uses “ف”, which in this context means “and”. This is significant, as it changes the meaning to suggest that ‘after’ the sperm drop is lodged securely, “and” the development of the clinging clot, “and” lump of flesh, bones, “and” the bones being covered happen all roughly together. This indicates that there were no stages here. And therefore, no mistake in the process. They all happened at once.
>>Our Response: In Arabic, the letter “ف” can be used to say then or and, depending on the context. In the context of this verse, five out of the seven translators used ‘then’ because the verses are clearly listing a process. This is not unique to the translators. Most Arabs and even all the Tafsirs we saw suggest there are stages in the way the verses are presented. Even people sharing the meme and shouting AllahuAkbar can see the stages. But even if we were to completely dismiss the stages, there is one word that no one can remove from the Quran that pinpoints a process: ‘فَكَسَوْنَا” (F-Kasouna) has a very specific meaning in Arabic that means ‘cover / clothed / layer over’. As much as some may try to fix this part, it simply does not work. To say ‘then we covered the bones’ or ‘and we covered the bones’ is a scientific error either way. In both cases, it does not work.
Final Thoughts:
When reflecting on how the Quran explained the process of embryology, you can see the hallmarks of 7th century knowledge.
Researches from Cambridge University point out that Quran’s descriptions of embryonic development were based on the knowledge that was available to the people of the seventh century. Research by Cambridge university found it very similar to the work of Greek Philosopher Galen:
https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/medical-history/article/galen-on-semen-ed-transl-and-commentary-by-phillip-de-lacy-corpus-medicorum-graecorum-5-3-1-berlin-akademie-verlag-1992-pp-291-dm-22000-3050018631/20309C569A084CC54D9676BBE67497B3
And this is why the issue with the embryology process does not stop here. If apologists had tried every trick in the book to fix these verses, they had to deal with a whole different challenge when addressing two background stories linked to them. One historical figure from Islamic history challenged the Prophet over Quran 23:13-14 – Abdullah Ibn Saad Ibn Abi Sarh, one of the Prophet’s most trusted scribes. The background to Quran 23:13-14 and their stories is discussed next in reason 27.