A Three Fold Darkness
By Samir Shreim
A baby's cries usher in the dawn of a new life. Nine months prior, the infant was nothing more than a single celled zygote, too small too be seen without the aid of a microscope. With modern scientific techniques, the womb has been illuminated, yet such light was cast into the darkness of the womb in the seventh century when the
Qur'an was revealed to Prophet Muhammad,
salla Allahu `alayhi wa sallam (peace and blessings be upon him). Allah,
subhanahu wa ta`ala (the Exhalted and Glorified), has ordered mankind to seek knowledge so that we may witness His signs.
Conception
Conception is the beginning of a new life. An ovum from the mother and a sperm from the father fuse to create the zygote. During intercourse, 250 million sperm are emitted by the father into the reproductive tract of the mother. There they begin the strenuous journey to the fallopian tubes where the ovum lies in wait. Out of the initial 250 million sperm only about 1,000 reach the ovum. Of these, only one is allowed to fertilize the ovum.
This separation, and the fact that only a small fraction of the sperm reaches the ovum, is detailed in the
Qur'an: “Does man reckon that he will be left without purpose? Was he not once a drop of ejected semen?” (75:36-37).
Gender
It's all about Xs and Ys. “X” and “Y” chromosomes actually. A chromosome is a compact carrier of genetic information and a human being has a total of forty-six chromosomes. The ovum and the sperm are each genetic carriers of their respective parents and each comes loaded with twenty-three chromosomes. Among these is one sex chromosome, which carries, among other things, the genes necessary for the development of a male or female.
The code is simple enough; XX and a baby girl is born, XY and it's a baby boy. Here's the catch: since only males posses a Y chromosome and only one sex chromosome is carried by each gamete (sperm or ovum), it is the sperm that carries the genetic information required to determine gender.
Glory be to Allah (swt) as this was revealed in the
Qur'an: “He has created both sexes, male and female from a drop of semen which has been ejected” (53:45-46).
Day seven
The zygote, or cell formed by the union of the two gametes, is now a three layered, hollow, aggregate of cells called a blastocyst. The blastocyst attaches to the lining of the uterus where it is nourished by maternal blood. Each layer spawns a various set of organs and systems, and the embryo takes an elongated leech-like shape. The relatively large amount of blood in the embryo causes the embryo to resemble clot-like characteristics.
By day twenty-eight, a series of ridges appears upon the back of the embryo. These ridges, called somites, resemble nothing more than the teeth marks of a chewed substance.
Allah (swt), the All-Knowing, bestowed upon us this knowledge in the
Qur'an: “We created man from an extract of clay. Then we made him as a drop in a place of settlement, firmly fixed. Then we made the drop into an alaqa (leech-like blood clot), then We made the alaqa into a mudgha (chewed substance)” (23:12-14).
Embryology in three easy steps
As it turns out each bundle of joy is created in three distinct phases. During phase one, known as the pre-embryonic stage, the single cell zygote divides continuously creating the multi-celled blastocyst. The blastocyst then embeds itself into the uterus. During phase two, or embryonic stage, the internal organs begin to appear. The final phase is known as the fetal stage. From this point forward the embryo resembles a tiny person. The fetus is only 3 cm long at this stage, and thirty weeks later, a complete human being is born.
Over 1,000 years of science have only recently discovered this phenomenon. It is with the grace of Allah (swt) however, that this three-step process was revealed over 1,400 years prior, in the
Qur'an: “...He creates you stage by stage in your mothers' wombs in a three fold darkness...” (39:6). One tends to wonder what modern science has yet to discover from the miracles of the
Qur'an. ̹
