Firstly, I never said that Surah 2:259 referred to a human embryo. But it clearly does refer to a bare skeleton being clothed with flesh. And the terminology used to describe this matches that given in Surah 23:14.
I also posted this:
In reality the bones and the flesh actually grow together and not as described in Surah 23:14. It might be worth asking when the skeleton forms according to Islamic teaching.
This hadith:
http://www.usc.edu/schools/college/c...m/033.smt.html
says:
Chapter 1: THE GROWTH OF A CHILD IN THE WOMB OF A MOTHER AND HIS DESTINY IN REGARD TO HIS LIVELIHOOD, HIS DEEDS, BOTH GOOD AND EVIL
Book 033, Number 6390:
Abdullah (b. Mas'ud) reported that Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) who is the most truthful (of the human beings) and his being truthful (is a fact) said: Verily your creation is on this wise. The constituents of one of you are collected for forty days in his mother's womb in the form of blood, after which it becomes a clot of blood in another period of forty days. Then it becomes a lump of flesh and forty days later Allah sends His angel to it with instructions concerning four things, so the angel writes down his livelihood, his death, his deeds, his fortune and misfortune. By Him, besides Whom there is no god, that one amongst you acts like the people deserving Paradise until between him and Paradise there remains but the distance of a cubit, when suddenly the writing of destiny overcomes him and he begins to act like the denizens of Hell and thus enters Hell, and another one acts in the way of the denizens of Hell, until there remains between him and Hell a distance of a cubit that the writing of destiny overcomes him and then he begins to act like the people of Paradise and enters Paradise.
According to this it is after 120 days, 3 periods of 40 days each, that the developing child comes to the end of the “lump of flesh” stage and would then, according to Surah 23:14, go on to form the bones. But in actuality the skeleton would have appeared before the end of 80 days.
And Vale’s Lily replied:
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[FONT="]In reality you're using a site that has been hijacked by Jews.. Do you not read in the title Muslim/Jewish student engagement? how about bringing us the original Arabic text and the scholarly commentary before imparting your own rendition?[/FONT]
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I really think that the burden of supplying the Arabic text and commentary for Sahih Muslim, Book 33, Number 6390 should rest with others. Where am I supposed to find them, even if I could read Arabic?
But leaving that aside, these details given in both the hadith and the tafsir (40 day periods) in connection with Surah 23:14, give us a clear time scale for when the skeleton would supposedly have been completed and before the flesh would have been added. And the whole picture is wrong.
