CHAPTER ONE The Quran: The Book of God

in flesh (defined by a different word from the preceding which signifies ‘intact flesh’). -Surah 23, verse 14: “We fashioned the thing which clings into a chewed lump of flesh and We fashioned the chewed flesh into bones and We clothed the bones with intact flesh.” ‘Chewed flesh’ is the translation of the word mudgha; ‘intact flesh’ is lahm. This distinction needs to be stressed. The embryo is initially a small mass. At a certain stage in its development, it looks to the naked eye like chewed flesh. The bone structure develops inside this mass in what is called the mesenchyma. The bones that are formed are covered in muscle; the word lahm applies to them. It is known how certain parts appear to be completely out of proportion during embryonic development with what is later to become the individual, while others remain in proportion. This is surely the meaning of the word mukhallaq, which signifies ‘shaped in proportion’ as used in verse 5, surah 22 to describe this phenomenon. “We fashioned ... into something which clings ... into a lump of flesh fashioned and unfashioned.” More than a thousand years before our time, at a period when whimsical doctrines still prevailed, those who were privileged to have a knowledge of the Quran were fortunate, for the statements it contains express in simple terms truths of primordial importance which man has taken centuries to discover. Origin of the Universe The Quran says: “Do not the disbelievers see that the heavens and the earth were one solid mass (ratq) which we tore asunder (fatq) …” (21:30) Ratq means wholesomeness, compactness, while fatq is the opposite, that is, disintegration. Modern studies in astronomy have confirmed the truth of this concept, various observations having led scientists to postulate that the universe was formed by an explosion from a state of high density and temperature (the ‘big-bang’ theory) and that the cosmos evolved from the original, highly compressed, extremely hot gas, taking the form of galaxies of stars, cosmic dust, meteorites and asteroids. The present outward motion of the galaxies is a result of this explosion. According to the Encyclopaedia