Dear Mr. Chaudry,

Lets read some poetry

The sun's light and the rays, let in, pour down; Across dark halls of houses: thou wilt see; The many mites in many a manner mixed; Amid a void in the very light of the rays; And battling on, as in eternal strife; And in battalions contending without halt; In meetings, partings, harried up and down. From this thou mayest conjecture of what sort; The ceaseless tossing of primordial seeds; Amid the mightier void- at least so far; As small affair can for a vaster serve; And by example put thee on the spoor; Of knowledge. For this reason too 'tis fit; Thou turn thy mind the more unto these bodies; Which here are witnessed tumbling in the light: Namely, because such tumblings are a sign; That motions also of the primal stuff; Secret and viewless lurk beneath, behind. For thou wilt mark here many a speck, impelled;  By viewless blows, to change its little course; And beaten backwards to return again; Hither and thither in all directions round. Lo, all their shifting movement is of old; From the primeval atoms; for the same; Primordial seeds of things first move of self; And then those bodies built of unions small; And nearest, as it were, unto the powers; Of the primeval atoms, are stirred up; By impulse of those atoms' unseen blows; And these thereafter goad the next in size; Thus motion ascends from the primevals on; And stage by stage emerges to our sense; Until those objects also move which we; Can mark in sunbeams, though it not appears; What blows do urge them. Herein wonder not; How 'tis that, while the seeds of things are all; Moving forever, the sum yet seems to stand; Supremely still, except in cases where; A thing shows motion of its frame as whole. For far beneath the ken of senses lies; The nature of those ultimates of the world; 

Those lines are from the English translation of a poem called "On the nature of things" by Lucretius. The poem is a compilation of thoughts of philosopher Epicurus (341–270 BC). It was written in 50 BC, more than 600 years before Quran, and contains a lot of musings by Epicurus on the nature of matter, universe, senses, life etc. Its a long poem replete with repetitions and warnings to the reader not to forget what the philosopher said (sounds familiar, doesn't it?)

With very little effort, the above passage can be shown to be revealing to us the Brownian motion or the fact that light consists of particles (and with a little more effort, both facts can be derived simultaneously making it a super miracle). In fact, many people have pointed out to the passages in the poem that 'foretell'  laws of inertia and even relativity. Of course, the poem contains a lot of things that are scientifically wrong as well but since Epicurus didn't claim to be god or his disciple, no one is offended when I say that. Also, no one tries to explain those unscientific things in a way that they sound scientific.

Lets now talk about the blood clot question. I am certain that there were no underground laboratories in Mecca or Medina where embryology was being researched. On the other hand, I am also certain that there were many miscarriages. The clotted blood emerging as the result of miscarriage can easily be mistaken for embryo. You don't need microbiology labs for that. Besides, the thought that embryo is a blood clot in early stages was not an idea originally introduced by Quran. I think it was Aristotle who originally said that an embryo is the product of man's semen and woman's menstrual blood. There are historic records that Greeks had talked about stages of embryology much before Quran and  some of their work had been translated to Arabic by the time Quran was introduced to the world. Even if that is all false, I fail to see what is so fantastic in the description of an embryo being a clot of blood that it should be considered beyond human imagination.

As for the issue of whether wife beating is allowed by Quran, you claim that the basic meanings of the word are to "explain assertively, [per]suasively, forcefully using strong arguments." Please share with me your source of the claim that those are the basic meanings of the word in question and beating is not.

 Following is a good article by Edip Yuksel defending Quran and he agrees with you on this issue

http://www.crescentlife.com/thisthat/feminist%20muslims/beating_women_yuksel.htm

Edip, in this article, says that "DaRaBa" means a lot of things in Arabic and even in Quran, it is not consistently used for any one thing. Its used for some 10 different meanings, 7 of which can be used in the context of Sura Nisa's 34th verse. This begs the question as to what is the criterion of choosing one meaning and dropping tens of the other possible ones? Also, what does that say to Quranic claims that its a "clear book" (5:15) "easy to understand” (54:22) and "conveyed clearly" (5:16) when there is disagreement among the translators on a such a small detail? 

Finally, you wrote, "I do realize that most translators have used the word ‘beating’, but that could very well be as you say, ‘the creative’ translation done by men to keep control over women – a cultural influence" I am glad that you finally admitted to the possibility of creative translations. Do you think that men lose that role if your suggested translation ('explain assertively' etc.) is right because I don't see Quran saying the same to wives? I think that with very little change, the verse could have become gender neutral and the reason its not is because god didn't want it to be.

I would request our in-house Islamic scholar, Farzana Hassan, to weigh in on the above issues as well.

Regards,

Rafi Aamer

December 2, 2005.