The myth of embryology in the Koran
In an effort to show the scientific accuracy of the Koran, Muslim's are quick to bring up the claim of embryology revealed in stunning accuracy, before man discovered for himself. Muslims love to tell the story of how professor Keith L. Moore, the former anatomist at the University of Toronto, was impressed with the Koran’s embryological information.
However many Muslim are completely unaware that all of the information in the Qur'an about embryology had already been revealed many different times, centuries before hand. Furthermore, some of the information is scientifically inaccurate.
But don't take my word for it, early Muslim doctors, like Ibn-Qayyim, were first to blow the whistle when they saw the Koranic material, mirrored a Greek doctor named Galen, who lived of 150 AD.
In 1983 Basim Musallam, Director of the Centre of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge concluded, "The stages of development which the Qur'an and Hadith established for believers agreed perfectly with Galen's scientific account....There is no doubt that medieval thought appreciated this agreement between the Qur'an and Galen, for Arabic science employed the same Qur'anic terms to describe the Galenic stages" (B. Musallam (Cambridge, 1983) Sex and Society in Islam. p. 54) In other words when it comes to embryology the Qur'an merely echoes the scientific knowledge man had already discovered 450 years earlier.
Samuel ha-Yehudi was a 2nd century Jewish physician, and one of many with an interest in embryology . The embryo was called peri habbetten (fruit of the body) and develops as golem (formless, rolled-up thing); shefir meruqqam (embroidered foetus - shefir means amniotic sac); 'ubbar (something carried); v'alad (child); v'alad shel qayama (noble or viable child) and ben she-kallu chadashav (child whose months have been completed). (J. Needham (Cambridge, 2nd edition 1959) A History of Embryology, p. 77)
J. Needham spent almost 60 pages in his book "A history of embryology", discussing ancient Greek, Indian and Egyptian embryology, than in less than 1 page he dismisses the entire Arabic tradition by concluding that "Arabic science ... was not of great help to embryology". After listing some of the verses in the Qur'an about embryology he dismisses them as "a echo of Aristotle and the Ayer-veda" . (J. Needham (Cambridge, 2nd edition 1959) A History of Embryology, p. 82), in other words a mixture of Greek and ancient Indian teachings.
And what about professor Keith L. Moore, once at the University of Toronto, who Muslims love to quote as a scientist who saw the light of the Koran? If you buy Moore’s latest sixth edition University textbook called "The developing human", he actually directs his readers to read an essay by Basim Musallam, who we just quoted. who shows that the Koran merely echoes what Greek doctor "Galen" wrote 450 years earlier. It seems Dr. Moore is not as impressed today. (B. Musallam, The human embryo in Arabic scientific and religious thought, in, G. R. Dunstan (ed.) (University of Exeter Press, 1990) The human embryo: Aristotle and the Arabic and European traditions, pp. 32-46)
In an effort to show the scientific accuracy of the Koran, Muslim's are quick to bring up the claim of embryology revealed in stunning accuracy, before man discovered for himself. Muslims love to tell the story of how professor Keith L. Moore, the former anatomist at the University of Toronto, was impressed with the Koran’s embryological information.
However many Muslim are completely unaware that all of the information in the Qur'an about embryology had already been revealed many different times, centuries before hand. Furthermore, some of the information is scientifically inaccurate.
But don't take my word for it, early Muslim doctors, like Ibn-Qayyim, were first to blow the whistle when they saw the Koranic material, mirrored a Greek doctor named Galen, who lived of 150 AD.
In 1983 Basim Musallam, Director of the Centre of Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Cambridge concluded, "The stages of development which the Qur'an and Hadith established for believers agreed perfectly with Galen's scientific account....There is no doubt that medieval thought appreciated this agreement between the Qur'an and Galen, for Arabic science employed the same Qur'anic terms to describe the Galenic stages" (B. Musallam (Cambridge, 1983) Sex and Society in Islam. p. 54) In other words when it comes to embryology the Qur'an merely echoes the scientific knowledge man had already discovered 450 years earlier.
Samuel ha-Yehudi was a 2nd century Jewish physician, and one of many with an interest in embryology . The embryo was called peri habbetten (fruit of the body) and develops as golem (formless, rolled-up thing); shefir meruqqam (embroidered foetus - shefir means amniotic sac); 'ubbar (something carried); v'alad (child); v'alad shel qayama (noble or viable child) and ben she-kallu chadashav (child whose months have been completed). (J. Needham (Cambridge, 2nd edition 1959) A History of Embryology, p. 77)
J. Needham spent almost 60 pages in his book "A history of embryology", discussing ancient Greek, Indian and Egyptian embryology, than in less than 1 page he dismisses the entire Arabic tradition by concluding that "Arabic science ... was not of great help to embryology". After listing some of the verses in the Qur'an about embryology he dismisses them as "a echo of Aristotle and the Ayer-veda" . (J. Needham (Cambridge, 2nd edition 1959) A History of Embryology, p. 82), in other words a mixture of Greek and ancient Indian teachings.
And what about professor Keith L. Moore, once at the University of Toronto, who Muslims love to quote as a scientist who saw the light of the Koran? If you buy Moore’s latest sixth edition University textbook called "The developing human", he actually directs his readers to read an essay by Basim Musallam, who we just quoted. who shows that the Koran merely echoes what Greek doctor "Galen" wrote 450 years earlier. It seems Dr. Moore is not as impressed today. (B. Musallam, The human embryo in Arabic scientific and religious thought, in, G. R. Dunstan (ed.) (University of Exeter Press, 1990) The human embryo: Aristotle and the Arabic and European traditions, pp. 32-46)
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