Some Thoughts On the Development of the Embryo

S 23:12-16 We created man from a descendancy of clay. / Then we made him a drop in a solid domicile. / Then we created the drop as a blood clot then we created the blood clot as a gobbet then we created the gobbet as bones then we clothed the bones with flesh. Then we constructed it as another creation. So blessed be Allah the best of creators! / Then you after that are dead men. / Then you on the day of resurrection are raised.

Most critics will begin from verse 13 or 14. But should we ignore verse 12? Let's examine the verses.

'We created (past tense) man from a descendancy of clay.' If 'man' stands for or includes us, how might Allah create us today? Adam was created from clay but the author speaks of a DESCENDANCY. Definitions of sulalah:

Noun

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سُلَالَة • (sulāla) f (plural سُلَالَات (sulālāt))

1. descendancy, lineage, pedigree (seen to both directions)

2. race, stock, strain (of cultivated plants or animals)

3. dynasty, bloodline  سلالة - Wiktionary, the free dictionary

سُلالَة ( اسم ) :- نَسَب، أصل

- descent; parentage; pedigree; genealogy; stock; strain; line; breed; race; descent; lineage; lineal descent; ancestry

المختصر

سُلالَة ( اسم ) :- نَسل، ذُرّيّة

- descendants; issue; ancestry; descendant; off spring; offspring; posterity; progeny; plural of child

سُلَالة

- ancestry (n); blood; descendant (n); descendants; descent (n); ethny; extraction; family; genealogy; gens; issue; line (n); lineage (n); offspring (n); origin; parentage; pedigree; phylon; progeny (n); race; souche; starin; stem; stirp; stirps; stock; strain; subspecies

المختصر

السلالة

- Breed; Descent; Progeny  سلالة In English - Translation and Meaning in English Arabic Dictionary of All terms Page 1

If Adam was created from a descendancy, didn't the human race exist before him? How might he have been the first man? But we read 'of/from clay'. Perhaps he was created from clay people :)) Certainly, we are not made from clay.

'Then we made HIM a drop in a solid domicile'. So if Adam is being referred to in the previous verse, shouldn't we understand that he was put as a drop of semen into a womb? How might ALLAH have put semen into a womb? And the whole ejaculate, not a spermatozoon? Usually only one spermatozoon makes it to the ovum, which is not spoken of in quran. There is a series of 'thens', stage A followed by stage B, etc. Shouldn't the first then be referring to Adam? More past tenses follow. The drop of semen was then created as a blood clot. Semen does not become blood whether fresh or dried.

If verse 12 is referring to people today, they were created from a descendancy of clay, --and then they were made into a drop of semen. And so on.

Further reading:

‘ALAQA (clot?) and other embryological stages in the Qur'an