Is that the only thing which has been said of the origin of man or there are other things as well? There are other things, but… Why do you leave them out and choose this particular bit? No, I am not saying that this is the only thing that man has been created. I know you are not saying that, but why have you chosen this as against all other references to the origin of life? Because I feel that this particular statement is incorrect scientifically. But when you take the whole of the statement and treat it as one unit, then you will understand that either everything is incorrect or nothing is incorrect.
To take singly one statement out of a set of statements is not the correct way of approaching the problem. The fact is that the Holy Quran also tells us that man was created from dust. The man was created from water. The man was created from kneaded earth mixed with water. The man was created from decaying mud. The man was created from the vegetable life. The man was created from human sperm. The man was created from alaqa. That is a state of… Let me… How would you translate alaqa? Not a lot of blood. A thing which is sticky. This is what I am saying, that verse does not state… Just a minute. It doesn’t say a lot of blood, it says something which is sticky, alaqa. Could it be mucus? No, mucus is just one thing.
Anything which is sticky and thick and has a certain viscosity… Viscosity. That is… Viscous. Which is viscous, yes. But whatever the appropriate word be, the fundamental of this alaqa is which has the quality of adhesion. Adhesive and sticky. So it also says, man is created from a state of mollusks. You know the sea life, in which there are mollusks found. They are neither meat nor bone, but something in between the two things. Also it says that man was created from a mixed affair of blood and all these things.
So all these statements put together are correct. They are stages. But that particular one translation is incorrect. If you use adhesion, then it would be correct that man has been… No, but blood also comes into it. Without blood, man cannot be created. As a clot. Clot, maybe the translation of clot is not acceptable to you, but sometimes it looks like a clot. At one stage of embryo, the thing exactly looks like a clot. Those girls who have miscarriage, those ladies who have miscarriage, at early stage, what they throw out to the apparent eye, it is exactly like a clot.
So why do you say it is incorrect? It is not incorrect. No stage which has been mentioned in the Holy Quran, vis-à-vis the question of development of man into his final shape, is incorrect, individually or collectively. No, I am just simply referring to that particular one statement where it is translated that it is from a clot of blood. I say even if the translation is wrong, still to say that clot comes into picture at one stage is not incorrect. You go and find out from any lady doctor. She will tell you that it is exactly true. At one stage the embryo looks like a clot. And a clot of blood for that matter.
