The Quran and Modern Science

Today, one may be a highly educated citizen of a wealthy, modern society with the internet at one’s fingertips. However, in order to begin to understand the extraordinary content within in the Quran, one must transport one’s self back hundreds of years to a time (e.g., around 610-632 CE) and place where “science” barely existed. Furthermore, Prophet Muhammad’s birthplace was in one of the most backward places of the world at that time. If you who have been fortunate enough to travel, perhaps you have even traveled to one of the rapidly disappearing places on our globe that has been relatively untouched by the modern world. If so, you might begin to have some sense of the world at an earlier time. Alternatively, perhaps you have studied the history of the world at a much earlier time. That, too, would help you to appreciate how different that time and world was. Changing your mindset to a different time and place can help you appreciate how extraordinarily it would be to find some of the Quranic material in such a place and time, especially since the Quran appears to emanate from an illiterate man. Much scientific information we take for granted these days, simply did not exist (or was incorrect) in earlier times and places. So readjust your mindset to a different time and place so that you can more fully appreciate the following… EMBROYOLOGY Context: While today people have a good understanding of reproduction, this has not always been the case. For example, do you know that the theory of “spontaneous generation” held sway for a time? The idea was that things like maggots would “spontaneously” appear on meat. Of note, Pasteur conclusively demonstrated that the theory was false by running controlled experiments during the 19th century CE. How about the theory of “preformationism?”1 The general idea was that, for example, a human was fully preformed as a “homunculus” i.e. a miniature human. Then this miniature human simply grew with time into an adult. The idea gained much strength under people like Nicolaas Hartsoeker in 1694 CE (before eventually being replaced by competing idea of epigenesis2’ due to Ritter von Baer’s discovery of the mammalian ovum (egg) in 1827 CE. and also due to the Hans Driesch experiments of the late 19th century CE. Sure a lot of this stuff sounds absurd, but the point is that things that are obvious to us now may not necessarily always have been. It helps to understand that, in order to more fully appreciate this section. Ok,on to embryology. Here are some Quranic verses and their commentaries that deal with human embryology. “Sulalah”