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Did the Quran get the stages of embryology wrong?

 

Did the Quran get the stages of embryology wrong?




"Then We made the sperm into a clot of congealed blood; then of that clot We made a (fetus) lump; then we made out of that lump bones and clothed the bones with flesh; then we developed out of it another creature. So blessed be Allah, the best to create!"


  • Yusef ali 23:14



Because it says “clot of blood” therefore it's a scientific mistake. But does the word “alaqah” that's translated into blood clot really means that?



The fourteenth century dictionary Lisān al-‘Arab states that  “alaqah” refers to a worm living in the water that sucks blood. the plural of which is ‘alaq”.


  • Lisān al-‘Arab, Dār Ṣādir, Beirut, n.d., vol. 10, pp 261-268




and in the dictionary of al- Qāmūs al-Muhit that ‘alaq” is a small creature of water that sucks blood [a leech]


  • Al-Qāmūs al-Muḥīṭ, vol. 3, p 275 


In Ad-Damīrī's Arabic zoological lexicon, Hayāt al- Hayawān [The Life of the Animals, 1372 C.E.], there is an article on the leech [‘alaq]

  • Kitāb Ḥayāt al-ḥayawān The Book of the Lives of the Animals

As you can see, the word “alaqah” means leech. In regards to this verse. Now obviously we weren't made from actual leech but Allah is comparing one of the stages of embryology to a leech. I will explain in a second But first read this: 


A popular ninth century Christian polemic against Islam claims that Muslims believe that “God created man from a leech”

  • Nicetas accuses the Qur’ān of teaching that man comes from a leech [Confutatio1, lines 90–92


 based on the work of Nicetas of Byzantium. Nicetas, who wrote be- tween 842 and 867 C.E., had a copy of the Qur’ān in Greek translation which he made use of to identify the tenets of Islam. His Greek translation renders both ‘alaq” and ‘alaqah as bdella [βδελλα], meaning “leech”.


  • he Byzantine Understanding of the Qur՚anic Term al-Ṣamad and the Greek Translation of the Qur’ān. Speculum, 86(04), 887-913.


Scholars, linguists and dictionaries have all mentioned one of the meanings of “alaqah” as a leech


Ibn Kathīr , mentions the meaning of “elon- gated like the shape of a leech.

  • Ibn Kathīr, Tafsīr Al-Qur'ān Al-'Azīm, volume 3  p. 242 

The Qur’ān: an En- cyclopedia has an entry for ‘alaqh”  that also mentions the same meanings: “The linguistic definition of ͑alaq [singular ͑alaqa] is ‘leech’, ‘medicinal leech’, ‘[coagulated] blood’, ‘blood clot’, or ‘the early stage of the embryo’


  • The Qur’an: An Encyclopedia: Routledge  p. 27.



Yes the word can mean “blood clot” and translation does put “blood clot” but it can also mean a “leech” which is commonly used as well, as you can see the christian from the 9th century thought that the Quran literally  is saying that Allah made us from a literal leech.


Now why would Allah use the word “leech” for this verse?

Take a look at this picture:


As you can see Allah is comparing the embryo to a leech. which is scientifically accurate. 


Got any questions?


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