BLOOD CIRCULATION AND THE PRODUCTION OF MILK
The Qur’an was revealed 600 years before the Muslim scientist Ibn Nafeez
described the circulation of the blood and 1,000 years before William
Harwey brought this understanding to the Western
world. Roughly thirteen
centuries before it was known what happens in the intestines to ensure
that organs are nourished by the process of digestive absorption, a
verse in the Qur’an described the source of the constituents of milk, in
conformity with these notions.
To understand the Qur’anic verse concerning the above concepts, it is
important to know that chemical reactions occur in the intestines and
that, from there, substances extracted from food pass into the blood
stream via a complex system; sometimes by way of the liver, depending on
their chemical nature. The blood
transports them to all the organs of the body, among which are the
milk-producing mammary glands.
In simple terms, certain substances from the contents of the intestines
enter into the vessels of the intestinal wall itself, and these
substances are transported by the blood stream to the various organs.
This concept must be fully appreciated if we wish to understand the
following verse in the Qur’an:
“And
verily in cattle there is a lesson for you. We give you to drink of what
is inside their bodies, coming from a conjunction between the contents
of the Intestine and the blood, A milk pure and pleasant for Those who
drink it.” [Al-Qur’an 16:66]
“And in cattle (too) ye Have an instructive example: From within their
bodies We produce (milk) for you To drink; there are, in them,
(Besides), numerous (other) Benefits for you; And of their (meat) ye
eat.”
[Al-Qur’an 23:21]
The Qur’anic description of the production of milk in cattle is
strikingly similar to what modern physiology has discovered.