Moslem Scholars Amazed: Expert on embryo growth explains Koran mystery by Zuhair Kashmeri (Metro)

For two years, a leading embryologist from the University of Toronto flew to and from Saudi Arabia on an unusual scientific mission - to see if he could help explain some verses from the Koran. Dr. Keith Moore's finding, corroborated by test-tube baby pioneer Dr. Robert Edwards, have left Moslem scholars amazed at what the two experts found in the verses that Islamic worshippers have memorized and recited for about 1,300 years.

What they found was an accurate description of the human embryo's stage-by-stage development, which was proposed by Western experts in 1940 and most of which was proved only in about the past 15 years. 'I am amazed at the scientific accuracy of these statements which were made in the seventh century,' Dr. Moore, the chairman of U of T's anatomy department, said in a paper he wrote after examining the verses.

Moslems believe that the Koran was revealed to the Prophet Mohammed by God in the seventh century, after which he propounded Islam, a religion that now has the second-largest following in the world after Christianity. Dr. Moore, a member of the United Church and the son of a clergyman, said in an interview that he is happy with being a Christian and has no intention of converting to Islam.

He said he subsequently examined both the old and new testaments, but could find no parallel to the Koranic verses. Dr. Moore, whose two books on embryology are standard tests and have been translated into several foreign languages, said some of the Koranic descriptions of the embryo in its first 28 days of development were so graphic that he was amazed.

He believes that the verses, along with some of the sayings of the prophet, 'may help to close the gap between science and religion which has existed for so many years.' Asked whether the descriptions may have resulted from crude dissections, Dr. Moore said that at this stage the embryo is about one-tenth of a millimetre long and would appear like a little dot to the human eye.

To discern its shape would require a powerful microscope and microscopes were not developed until the seventeenth century, he said. Dr. Moore was invited to the Kung Abdul Aziz University in Jeddah, near Mecca, two years ago along with Dr. Edwards, whose research at Cambridge University led to the birth of the first test-tube baby in 1978, Dr. T.V.N. Persaud from Winnipeg and Dr. Marshall Johnson from the Jefferson Medical Centre in Philadelphia.

He said Islamic scholars at the university presented the four with English translations of several different Koranic verses to determine if they had any scientific meaning. One of the verses they interpreted read: 'God makes you in the wombs of your mothers in stages, one after another, within three veils of darkness.' Dr. Moore said the three veils could reasonably be interpreted to mean the mother's abdominal wall, the wall of the uterus and the amniochorionic membrane. Another verse read: 'Thereafter, we created of the drop a thing which clings, a leech-like structure.'

Dr. Moore and the others found that the Arab leech bears a striking resemblance to the embryo at 24 days, and Dr. Moore said the embryo does cling to the wall of the uterus at this stage. A subsequent verse says the leech-like dot appears later like a chewed substance. Dr. Moore shaped some plasticene like the embryo at 28 days and put his own teeth marks into it. His chewed plasticene was the carbon copy of the embryo at this stage with pairs of bead-like marks similar to the teeth marks.

The verse noted that only some parts of the substance are distinguishable at this stage and, in fact, the heart and eye lens are, Dr. Moore said. He said verses describe the semen 'gushing' from the male upon ejaculation but fertilizing sperm being derived from only a small portion of the semen.

Dr. Moore said in his paper: 'It was not until the eighteenth century that Spallanzani showed experimentally that both male and female sex products were necessary for the initiation of development'.It is difficult not to interpret the mixed drop mentioned in the Koran in the seventh century as a reference to the mingling of the male and female sex cells described 11 centuries later.'

Another verse talks of the minute, dot-like (nutfa, in Arabic) amount of sperm containing a plan or blueprint for future characteristics and features. Among the collected sayings of the Prophet that Dr. Moore examined was one that said that 42 days after conception, God sends an angel to give the dot-like substance human features such as eyes and ears.

Embryonic research shows that at 42 days the eyes and ears are clearly visible, Dr. Moore said. The angel, according to Mohammed, asks God each time: 'Oh, God, (is this) a male or a female'' Again, modern research has shown that the sex is not distinguishable until the 12th week, Dr. Moore said.

Dr. Moore believes it is quite reasonable for Moslems to believe that these verses are revelations from God and hence so accurate. His interpretations have startled Moslems in general. According to Said Zafar, president of the Markaz Dawa al-Islami or Islamic propagation centre of Ontario, Moslems are startled because they open the Koran only during prayers, marriages and funerals.

'It takes a white scholar to prove to them the miracles in the Koran,' Mr. Zafar said. 'Besides, the Saudi Arabians lived for 1,300 years in a state of ignorance and intolerance. When the first astronaut landed on the moon in 1968, the Saudis called it the act of the Devil when the Koran clearly says in a verse that the universe is for man to explore.'

Mr. Zafar and Dr. Moore said Islamic scholars in Saudi Arabia are now extremely keen to focus the findings of Western science on the Koran. Dr. Moore has talked about his interpretations to his own department and to experts in the United States and several parts of the Middle East. Last week, he addressed a meeting of about 300 mostly Moslem students at U of T.