Boreal
GETTING TO KNOW ALLAH
Allah and the Beginnings of Life
A Fluid Beginning
25:54 And it is He who created from water a human being;
then he made him a kin by blood or marriage. Your Lord is All-Powerful.
----
77:20 Have we not created them from base water?
77:21 That We laid in a secure place;
77:22 Until an appointed term.
77:23 We determined, and what excellent determiners were We!
77:24 Woe on that Day (Judgement Day), betide those who denounce.
From “base water” deposited in the womb, Allah creates a human being with its two senses, a heart and no brain, as the heart was understood at the time of Muhammad to do much of what we know today to be the exclusive domain of the brain: thinking.
16:78 And Allah brought you out of your mothers’ bellies knowing nothing; and gave you hearing, sight and hearts, that perchance you may give thanks.
In another revelation about creating humans from H20, it is “flowing water” which islamicstudies.info contends “means ejaculation.” Their conclusion is reinforced by Yusuf Ali’s translation of 86:6 in Surah The Night-Visitor as “He is created from a drop emitted.”
THE NIGHT –VISITOR
86 At-Tariq
In the Name of Allah,
the Compassionate, the Merciful
86:1 By the heavens and the night-visitor.
86:2 If only you knew what is the night visitor,
86:3 The piecing star.
86:4 Every soul has a watcher;
86:5 So let man consider what he was created from.
86:6 He was created from flowing water;
The amniotic sac, which ruptures at the onset of labour, is much closer to what God describes as the source of the water than are the testes. Then again, anatomy was never Allah’s strong suit.
86:7 Emanating from what lies between the loins and the breast-bones.
Perhaps it was mixture of sperm and water.
76:1 Has there come upon man a period of time when he was not a noteworthy thing?
76:2 We have indeed created man from a mixed sperm to test him; and so We made him capable of hearing and sight.
76:3 We have guided him upon the path, either as thankful or thankless.
Allah created all creatures from water.
24:45 Allah created every beast from water. Some of them crawl on their bellies, some walk on two feet and others walk on four. Allah creates whatever He pleases. Allah, indeed, has power over everything.
Revelations 75:37-39 bear a remote resemblance to what actually happens, if you ignore the role of a woman’s egg and the fact that the sex of an individual is decided at conception.
75:36 Does man think that he shall be left unattended (on Judgement Day)?
75:37 Was he not a drop of sperm released?
75:38 Then, he was a leech; then He created and fashioned (him);
75:39 Making of him a couple, male and female. If Allah is able to create life, is He not also able to bring the dead back to life?
75:40 Is not that One Able to quicken the dead?
Bones Then Flesh
There is no such stage when bones are formed first then coated with flesh.
23:14 Then we created out of the sperm a clot; then made from the clot a lump of flesh, then made the lump of flesh into bones; and then covered the bones with flesh; then fashioned him into another creation. So Blessed be Allah, the Best of Creators.
23:15 Then after that you will surely die.
23:16 Then on the Day of Resurrection you will surely be raised from the dead.
Beware of the Clot
2:28 How can you disbelieve in Allah. You were dead (being a life-germ i.e. not living yet) and He brought you back to life (as a child), then He will cause you to die and bring you back to life again; then unto Him you will return.
In Surah The Clot, Allah reveals what Islamic scholars often point to as proof that He knew more about conception than was known at the time; that God was aware that babies developed from a fertilized egg, a zygote. They interpret “clot” in Verse 96:2 to mean zygote.
THE CLOT 96
Al-`Alaq
In the Name of Allah,
the Compassionate, the Merciful
96:1 Read, in the Name of your Lord, Who created;
96:2 He created man from a clot.
To back up their argument, they also point to verse 22:5:
22:5 O people, if you are in doubt regarding the resurrection, We have indeed created you from dust, then from a sperm, then from a clot, then from a little lump of flesh, partly formed and partly unformed, in order to show you. We deposit in the wombs whatever We please, for an appointed term; then we bring you out as infants, till you attain full strength. Some of you are made to die, and some are returned to the vilest age, so that they may not know, after having acquired some knowledge, anything. And you see the earth barren, but when We send down water upon it, it stirs and swells and produces vegetation of every pleasing variety.
22:6 That is because Allah is the Truth, and He brings the dead to life and He has power over everything.
Muhammad, in the following hadith, explains what Allah meant by clot, and it is not a zygote by any stretch of the imagination; it is something completely alien to what we know about the gestation process.
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.
Then Allah sends an angel who is ordered to write four things. He is ordered to write down his (i.e. the new creature's) deeds, his livelihood, his (date of) death, and whether he will be blessed or wretched (in religion). Then the soul is breathed into him.
So, a man amongst you may do (good deeds till there is only a cubit between him and Paradise and then what has been written for him decides his behavior and he starts doing (evil) deeds characteristic of the people of the (Hell) Fire.
And similarly a man amongst you may do (evil) deeds till there is only a cubit between him and the (Hell) Fire, and then what has been written for him decides his behavior, and he starts doing deeds characteristic of the people of Paradise."
Bukhari 54.430
It's All About the Sperm
6:98 And it is He Who created you from a single living soul; then [gave you] a resting place and a repository. Indeed, We have made plain Our signs for a people who understand.
-----
23:12 We have created man from an extract of clay;
23:13 Then we placed him as a sperm in a secure place;
-----
40:67 It is He who created you from dust[7], then from a sperm, then from a clot. Then He brings you out as infants; then allows you to come of age, then become old men. Some of you will pass away before that, but you will attain a fixed term, that perchance you might understand.
40:68 It is He Who brings life and causes to die. Then, if He decrees a certain matter, He only says: “Be”, and it comes to be.
A man is not the creator of the semen he emits during ejaculation.
56:57 We have created you, if only you would believe!
56:58 Have you seen the semen you emit?
56:59 Do you create it, or are We the Creators?
The semen that God has created is then deposited in the “resting place” that is the amniotic sack as “a sperm-drop” (Revelation 16:4) and from which He will fashion His “professed disputant” the woman’s role being relegated to a “repository” for the sperm to grow into a male or female as directed.
16:3 He created the heavens and the earth in truth; may He be exalted above what they associate [with Him].
16:4 He created man from a sperm-drop and, behold, he is a professed disputant.
Don’t be confused by the translators' use of sperm, sperm-drop and semen interchangeably, it’s all semen (an actual sperm was first identified by Antonie van Leeuwenhoek in 1677 using one of the first microscopes).
35:11 Allah created you from dust, then from a sperm, then made you into couples. No female bears or gives birth, save with His knowledge, and no man advances in years or his life-span is diminished, except as ordained in the Book. That indeed is an easy matter for Allah.
Another reminder from Allah about what He created from a sperm and a sperm only.
80:17 May man perish! How thankless he is!
80:18 Of what did He create him?
80:19 Of a sperm, He created him and determined him.
80:20 Then He smoothed his path;
80:21 Then He caused him to die and entombed him;
80:22 Then, if He wishes He will raise him from the dead.
80:23 No indeed; he did not fulfil what He commanded him.
Things Which Don’t Come in Pairs
13:3 And it is He Who spread out the earth and placed therein firm mountains and rivers; and of each kind of fruit He created two pairs (males and females). He causes the night to cover the day. Surely in that are signs for people who reflect.
36:36 Glory be to Him Who created all the pairs of what the earth brings forth, of their own kinds and of what they know not.
78:8 And created you in pairs?
What about organisms such as the amoeba that reproduce asexually, i.e., without transfer of reproductive material from a male donor to a female “receptacle”? What about animals higher up the evolutionary ladder, such as the female whiptail lizard and other species that reproduce through pathogenesis (no males required)? Science may have to revisit this entire asexual reproduction thing. As for living organisms that don't come in pairs, it has to be a mistake. As to self-pollinating fruit trees, the less said the better.
Allah as Proof that Imperfection Is Pervasive
If God had been aware of the roles a woman’s eggs and menstruation play in the reproductive cycle, would He have considered her contaminated during her menses, thereby admitting that the reproduction cycle of which He is so proud and which He closely controls is flawed and that He “Who fashioned well everything He created” is responsible?
32:7 Who fashioned well everything He created, and originated the creation of man from clay.
32:8 Then He fashioned his progeny from an extract of fluid.
32:9 Then He shaped him well and breathed into him of His Spirit. He gave you hearing, sight and hearts. How little do you give thanks!
Allah admitting that what He has created has flaws that the dutiful believer can attenuate.
70:19 Man was truly created apprehensive.
70:20 When misfortune visits him, he is frightened;
70:21 But when good fortune visits him, he is avaricious.
70:22 Except for those who pray;
70:23 Those who are constantly at prayer;
70:24 And those who have set aside a fixed portion of their wealth,
70:25 For the beggar and the destitute.
70:26 And those who believe firmly in the Day of Judgement;
70:27 And those who fear the punishment of their Lord.
70:28 The punishment of their Lord cannot be averted;
70:29 And those who guard their private parts;
70:30 Except from their wives or what their right-hands possess (their slave-girls); for they are not therein blameworthy.
70:31 He who seeks [pleasure] beyond that – those are the transgressors.
70:32 And those who honour their trusts and their pledges;
70:33 And those who stand by their testimonies;
70:34 And those who observe their prayer;
70:35 All those shall be in Gardens, well-honoured.
If God had created mankind from a combination of a man’s sperm and a woman’s egg, perhaps there would be fewer trouble-makers.
36:77 Does not man see that We created him from a sperm; and behold he is a manifest trouble-maker?
-----
[7] In two revelations about the creation of Adam (see Shared Prophets: "Adam," Boreal Books) God reveals He created him from dust; in another twelve, it is clay. Clay it is, then.