The Quran on Human Embryonic Development 3

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The next stage mentioned in the verse is the mudghah stage. The Arabic word mudghah means "chewed-like substance". If one were to take a piece of gum and chew it in his mouth, and then compare it with the embryo at the mudghah stag, we would conclude that the embryo at the mudghah stage acquires the appearance of a chewed-like substance because of the somites at the back of the embryo that "somewhat resemble teeth marks in a chewed substance" (see figures 5 and 6).

Figure 5: Photograph of an embryo at the mudghah stage (28 days old). The embryo at this stage acquires the appearance of a chewed-like substance, because the somites at the back of the embryo somewhat resemble teeth marks in a chewed substance. The actual size of the embryo is 4 mm. (The Developing Human, Moore and Persaud, 5th ed., p. 82, from Professor Hideo Nishimura, Kyoto University, Kyoto, Japan.)

Figure 6: When comparing the appearance of an embryo at the mudghah stage with a piece of gum that has been chewed, we find similarity between the two.
A) Drawing of an embryo at the mudghah stage. We can see here the somites at the back of the embryo that look like teeth marks. (The Developing Human, Moore and Persaud, 5th ed., p. 79.)
B) Photograph of a piece of gum that has been chewed.

How could Muhammad have possibly known all this 1,400 years ago when scientists have only recently discovered this using advanced equipment and powerful microscopes which did not exist at that time? Hamm and Leeuwenhoek were the first scientists to observe human sperm cell (spermatozoa) using an improved microscope in 1677 (more than 1,000 years after Muhammad ). They mistakenly thought that the sperm cell contained a miniature preformed human being that grew when it was deposited in the female genital tract.

Professor Keith Moore is one of the world’s prominent scientists in the fields of anatomy and embryology and is the author of the book entitled The Developing Human, which has been translated into eight languages. This book is considered a scientific reference work and was chosen by a special committee in the United States as the best book authored by one person. Dr. Keith Moore is a Professor of Anatomy and Cell Biology at the University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada. In 1984, he received the most distinguished award presented in the field of anatomy in Canada, the J.C.B. Grant Award from the Canadian Association of Anatomists. He has directed many international associations, such as the Canadian and American Association of Anatomists and the Council of the Union of Biological Sciences.

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 Quran about human development. It is clear to me that these statements must have come to Muhammad from God, or Allah, 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, or Allah.

Consequently, Professor Moore was asked the following question; "Does this mean that you believe that the Quran is the Word of God?" He replied: "I find no difficulty in accepting this."

During one conference, Professor Moore stated, ".... Because the staging of human embryo is complex, owing to the continuous process of change during development, it is proposed that a new system of classification could be developed using the terms mentioned in the Quran and Sunnah (what Muhammad said, did or approved of). The proposed system is simple, comprehensive, and conforms with present embryological knowledge. The intensive studies of the Quran and Hadeeth (reliably transmitted reports by the Prophet Muhammad’s companions of what he said, did, approved of) in the last four years have revealed a system of classifying human embryos that is amazing since it was recorded in the seventh century A.D. Although Eric Statle, 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 history of embryology, little was known about the staging and classification of human embryos until the twentieth century. The only reasonable conclusion is that these descriptions were revealed to Muhammad from Allah. He could not have know such details because he was an illiterate man with absolutely no scientific training."

The source of this article is www.islam-guide.com

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