A great debate, I support Mansio's positon. This debate supporting the reproduction system quickly diverges down to human interpretation and also loses any postion of uniqueness.

Hello Mansio,
There are a number of problems with this. First, I asked for a reference to hindu scriptures not some book written in french about hinduism. Secondly, the hindu concept of worlds (Loka) is clearly quite unlike anything in the Islamic religion at all! Third, even if Hindus did believe in just seven heavens, (which they clearly don't, the concept of swarga and moksha is clearly much more complex) it still wouldn't prove anything!

Here we find that you are shifting back into your old irritating habit of making allegations that are not only unsubstantiated, but have been REFUTED SEVERAL TIMES BEFORE! What evidence have you provided to support this ludicrous allegation? Not a shred of evidence! You continue to advance your imaginative notions as facts despite the fact that they have already been debunked.

I think it is safe to say that we will dismiss this claim as a lie until you are prepared to do the research, read over the refutations we gave, and provided a thoughtful and evidence-based response.

On to verses 86:6-7. You have mentioned absolutely nothing that refutes the explanation given, but instead you continue to beat around the bush.

Let me make this very clear for you:

CLAIM (from mansio): verse 86:7 contains an error because it states that semen comes from between the loins and the ribs.

RESPONSE: Wrong, there is no error. The Qur'an states that man has been created from that which emanates from between the sulb and the tarâib. The sulb refers to the loins of the man and the taraib refers to the abdomen of the female. This is how the terms have been defined in the classical dictionary Al-Qamus by Al-Fayruzabadi and in the Tafsir of Ibn Kathir, both written centuries ago when there would have been no concern for the scientific implications of these terms!

Mansio, you failed to respond to the fact that tarâib refers to a woman's body, which shatters your entire allegation!

Who cares?! We are talking about what the Qur'an means when it says 'sulb' and 'taraib'! It doesn't make a difference if everyone in the universe has always believed loins are 'the seat of reproductive faculties'. The fact that you are evading is that your allegation has been refuted.

Regards

So I guess what you are saying is that The Quran was copied form the previous scriptures?

Well if that is the case then I will put forward an argument given in the Quran itself...

Allah swt says, say to them if they say the Quran was copied, that then they copied their books from the books before them and the ones before them from people before them, until you will come to Abraham (as), then say to them, why not worship the same as Abraham worshipped?

For surely he worshipped none but One God

So IF you claim what you claim then I can easily claim the counter against you which would then lead us to Abraham, and so I invite you to worship Allah in oneness

------------------------------------

Furthermore - there is no reference given to Sperm in 85: 5 to 7
The Quran speaks about a drop emitted - this could be blood from the heart which ofcourse makes up the sperm in the first place.

Also more notably you have taken one verse to critisize it but have disregarded the other verses which DO directly talk about sperm and this description has been acknolowedged by Scholars of Biology and Human reproduction: Human Embroyolgy in the Quran

Furthermore - all your claims themselves dont make sense, you are saying that this part of the Quran exists there and that part exists there...but you miss the most important part which is the Prophet Mohammed(sa) was illiterate...so I wonder how he was able to read all these books.

Even furthermore - texts were not so easily available in those days, publishing did not become common until much later when the Muslims using paper from Chinese first established mass production of books. So in those days parchment would be used and there werent multiple copies of books to go around and if you think about it realistically how many languages did Mohammed know ?
Greek, Sanskrit, Hewbrew, Arabic, Aramiac, what else?

You are turning an illiterate man into a master of all languages and a scholar of some sort..

So that is why your whole argument is baseless

Ansar al Adl

I never compared Hinduism with Islam. I compared the idea of Big Bang and Big Crunch that one of your link writers claimed to find in the Quran with a similar idea in Hinduism.
As soon as I manage to find the pages from Hindu scriptures about the cosmic egg Brahmânda with its seven heavenly levels I'll post them for you. Get your Sanskrit-English dictionary ready.

__________________________________________________ _______________
Your quote: Mansio, you failed to respond to the fact that tarâib refers to a woman's body, which shatters your entire allegation!
__________________________________________________ _______________

Wrong. I responded to that, but not according to what you expected.
"What a ridiculous explanation" was my response.

How is it possible to imagine for one second that the "sulb" and the "tara'ib" belong to TWO different persons ! Muslim scholars must really have been embarrassed by that sentence to find such a way out.

If that were true, God could have written "issueing from between man's loins and woman's ribs".
Even written like that the sentence would not make sense because of the words "from between". Semen would come from a place situated somewhere between the loins of a man and the ribs of a woman. How is that possible ? Would it float in mid air between the two persons ?
The "tarâ'ib" (plural of tarîbat) are the chest, or the area between the breasts and the shoulder blades, or the ribs, or the breasts, or the area from the lower neck to the chin. That is how all translators understood it.
It may be that one sense of tarâ'ib is abdomen of a woman. The sentence then could have made some beginning of sense if it were written "issueing from the loins and woman's tarâ'ib" without "bayni".

Abu Zakariya

By your different remarks about the Arabic language I assume that you have some knowledge of it.
Could you tell me why in the Arabic Quran, Allaah is written with a short "a" in the second syllable ?
In modern books Allaah is written with a long "a" by means of a superscribed alif.
Thank you for answering.

mansio

I never claimed that I have knowledge in the arabic language.

However, my point was that someone that doesn't have knowledge of the arabic language shouldn't analyze an arabic scripture. You clearly don't agree, since you went ahead and did it just now, commenting on the verses in sura at-Taariq.
I didn't analyze the verses, rather I went to the experts on arabic as well as Koranic exegesis to get clarity instead of trying to analyze it by myself despite being ignorant of arabic. This can't be said for some other LI-members.

Great response there! Top notch refutation. Where did you learn to produce such in-depth analyzing arguments?


This isn't a far-fetched explanation made by muslim scholars as you try to make it seem, rather, this is how the verse is understood in arabic.

Why do that when it is already understood to mean that?

Again, tar'aib doesn't have to refer to the ribs. It is an ambigous term that could refer to any female body part.

Okay.
Could you please analyze the words in the verses and explain what they mean so that we can get clarity?

Hello Mansio,
Oh, don't worry, there's no need for you to hunt for the verses, I already have the verses about the hindu cosmic egg which refute your claim that it is similar to the Qur'an! Here are the verses:

Chandogya Upanisad 3.19:1-4. In the beginning this world was simply what is non-existing; and what is existing was that. It then developed and formed into an egg. It lay there for a full year and then it hatched, splitting in two, one half becoming silver and the other half gold. The silver half is this earth, while the golden half is the sky. The outer membrane is the mountains, the inner membrane, the clouds and the mist; the veins, the rivers; and the amniotic fluid, the ocean. Now, the hatchling that was born was the sun up there. And as it was being born, cries of joy and loud cheers rose up in celebration, as did all beings and all desires. Therefore, every time the sun rises and every time it returns, cries of joy and loud cheers rise up in celebration, as do all beings and all their hopes. When someone knows this and venerates brahman as the sun, he can certainly expect that the pleasing sound of cheering will reach his ears and delight him. (SOURCE).

Also read these hindu verses which utterly destroy your claim that hindu creation beliefs match those of Islam!!

You're right I didn't consider that an intelligent response at all! Calling my explanation ridiculous does not in any way refute it!

The sulb refers to the loins of the man while the tara'ib refers to the abdomen of the woman. Thus, the adequate english translation would be: emanating from between the [man's] loins and the [woman's] abdomen.
Muhammad Asad has translated this correctly.

Please tell me, mansio, why Ibn Kathir, who died in the year 1372 CE, be embarassed by this passage? Why would he, and all other commentators like Ibn Jarir At-Tabari (d. 923CE) give such an explanation?

Furthermore, why is it narrated from Ibn Abbas! Why would a companion of the Prophet be embarassed by such a passage that he would need to redefine the words?!

Why would Al-Fayruzabadi (d. 818 CE) redefine the arabic language in his famous Al-Qamûs, just for this verse?!

If the word sulb is known to refer to a man, and the word taraib is known to refer to a woman, why would God have to write that?

It's like saying that a book that says sperm comes from the testes and the egg comes from the ovaries, should specify that it is the man's testes and the woman's ovaries!!

No, it goes from the man's loins to the woman's abdomen.

Why? It makes perfect sense the way it is! The fluid emanates from between the man's loins and the woman's abdomen.

It seems quite clear that your desperate attempts to refute this linguistic fact are futile.

Regards

Here is the list of the bunch of idiots who have not heard of Ibn Kathir, Fairuzabadi and Tabari's explanations that the tarâ'ib are the abdomen of woman and not the thorax of man and woman.

--- Dr. Bucaille: He belongs to the very few translators who state that tara'ib in the Quran refers to the abdomen of woman.
He hesitated a long time (why ?) before he found the "right" translation. And you know where he got it from ? From a fellow French doctor, A.K. Giraud, a former professor at the Medecine School of Beyrouth (Lebanon was a French protectorate at the time).

--- Abdullah Yusufali: translates tara'ib as ribs. He is a Muslim.

--- Marmaduke Pickthal (a Muslim): ribs

--- M.H. Shakir (a Muslim): ribs

--- AJ Arberry: breast-bones

--- Ahmadiyya (Muslim): ribs (in German)

--- MA Rassoul (Muslim): ribs (in German)

--- Al-Azhar Institute Cairo: ribs (in German)

--- Zaidan (Muslim): ribs (in German)

--- Khoury (Muslim): ribs (in German)

--- Ministry of Islamic Affairs, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia: ribs (in French)

--- D. Masson (translation accepted by Al-Azhar Institute): ribs (in French)

The Greek and the Bible believed that semen comes from the kidneys area. The place pointed out by the Quran, between the thorax and the abdomen, is the kidneys area.

may allah guide you.....

Sumay

Thank you for your wish.
You have not answered yet my two questions about Adam.
This forum is in English. I notice that you use the Arabic word Allah and not its English translation God. Do you make a difference between the two words ?

Hello Mansio,
First of all, even if that were true - what does it prove? Nothing. Does it refute my explanation? Absolutely not. Even if you had a list of translators twice as long, it still would not refute my explanation.

Secondly, many of the translators you cite are not considered authorities on the Islamic religion. Dr. Bucaille, Yusuf Ali, Pickthall - none of them are Muslim scholars nor did they even have a formal education in Islam. There are numerous other errors in their works that have already been noted, this would just be one more added to the list (even though it is not really an error as I will point out later). You also mention sectarian translators who are Ahmadi or Shia etc. and are also not regarded as authorties. And a number of your translations are from Arabic to German to English or Arabic to French to English, thus more meaning is lost and we lose the direct translation.

Thirdly, there are many other translators I can list for you who show that they did understand this concept. And even those who translated it in the way you listed does not mean that they didn't understand this. For example, if we consult the translation of George Sale (d. 1736), the well-known orientalist, translates this verse as:

issuing from the loins, and the breastbones.

This is very similar to the translations you gave, but does it mean that Mr. Sale did not understand that taraîb refers to the woman? No, it does not because he includes the following footnote:

h i.e., From the loins of the man, and the breast-bones of the woman.1

So even though he knew that the sulb referred to the man and the taraîb refers to the woman, he still did not see any reason why this must be explicitly included in the translation of the verse itself.

So even the translations you cited do NOT contradict the explanation given by Qur'anic commentators like Ibn Kathir or Ibn Jarir. So long as it is understood that the loins refers to the man and the ribs, thorax, or breastbones refers to the woman, there is nothing specifically wrong with the translation. Of course they could have made it clearer as Muhammad Asad did, but they didn't see it as necessary. Even the english translation of Ibn Kathir just has the word 'ribs' despite the fact that it is followed by Ibn Kathir's explanation of this specific word! So this does not mean that these translators were stupid or ignorant of these explanations, but for whatever reason they found their translation sufficient.

Fourthly, as I pointed out earlier in the thread, this is not the only way of explaining these verses. Dr. Naik uses the medical explanation of the descending of the reproductive organs during embryological development, and Moiz Amjad prefers the explanation that it is a euphemistic reference to the reproductive organ. Neither of these explanations are necessarily wrong either, but it goes to prove that no matter which way you want to analyze the verse it does not constitute an error.

They can believe it comes out of their nose for all I care. It has nothing to do with the Qur'an. Besides, your comment about the Bible is not true. Where in the Bible does it say such a thing?

I just gave you the explanation of sulb and taraîb and you still make such ignorant comments!

Regards

Ansar al Adl

If you want to go through Hindu scriptures instead of relying on scholars, you still have thousands of pages to go through. The scriptures that deal with the cosmic egg are the Brahmânda Purana (several volumes).

I checked with two Arabic dictionaries at the university bookstore. Tarîbat is the chest, or the upper part of the chest. Nowhere is it mentioned that it is the chest of woman (except of course when it refers to the breasts), and it has nothing to do with the lower part of the body. It relates only to the part between the waist and the chin.
The plural tarâ'ib are the ribs.

Your quote: "So long as it is understood that the loins refers to the man and the ribs, thorax, or breastbones refers to the woman, there is nothing specifically wrong with the translation."

In your before last post you stated three times that tarâ'ib refers to the abdomen of woman. Now you settle for the thorax of woman.
Let's suppose the tarâ'ib are only the ribs of woman. The verse would be nonsensical: what connection is there between reproduction and woman's ribs ?

I was expecting your criticism of the different translators. When there is something wrong in the Quran it is always the translator's fault.
I didn't mention all the non-Muslim translators (except one), so that you could not put forward the argument that they may have an anti-Islam bias.
You are strangely mute about the Al-Azhar and Saudi Ministry of Islamic Affairs sponsored translations.
Do you think they are not considered authorities on the Islamic religion ?

I don't need to go through any scriptures, I've already debunked that point of yours with the quote from Chandogya Upanisad 3.19:1-4. Scroll back to read it.

This is a poor attempt to refute the linguistic explanation I provided. First, I quoted a nummber of classical tafasir and linguists who all confirmed this definition of the word. So even if your references were correct (and you haven't mentioned any of them) it still doesn't refute anything I mentioned because my references demonstrate clearly that a wide majority of arabs understood it to refer to the woman. So even if it has acquired the new meaning of just 'ribs' it still would not negate the already existing meaning that it had before.

No, I maintain the same position I always have. But I am stressing that even if you translate the tarâ'ib as a reference to the thorax it still does not negate the explanation provided. There is only one thing that is significant in supporting the explanation: the tarâ'ib refers to the woman's body. So the verse states that man is created from a fluid issuing forth between the man's loins and the woman's body.

And as I already quoted earlier about the term tarâ'ib:

It can apply to any region nearing the ribcage. Therefore, the area of the ovaries, the fallopian tubes, or the uterus can easily fit into the general area that is being indicated by these verses.

So, yes, 'ribs' is a translation of the term that is in concordance with science.

No, when there is a mistranslation we do not attribute that mistake to the Qur'an but to the translator.
But you quoted several sectarian translators so it nullified your argument either way.
No, I already responded to that in my comment about the translations when I used George Sale as an example. Sale translated the verses the same way although he understood them in the manner that I explained. The same is true for Saudi translators like Muhsin Khan and Taqiuddin Hilali.

Again, a futile attempt to attack my explanations. And just think about this: this is only one explanation - what if we consider the fact that there are the two other explanations that are also sufficient on their own, to refute the allegation. No matter what way you look at this, there is simply no way for the skeptic to establish that the Qur'an has an error.

well mansoi i think u are being unfair

ur allegations were refuted so u are reverting to calling scholars as "idiots"

however IRRESPECTIVE of that hindu scriptures say I reject them whole heartedly because at the end of the day this is what they are telling me to worship....


Meet one of the hindu Gods

Hanuman