Surah 22:5
"People! If you are in doubt about the raising up – surely We created you from dust, then from a drop, then from a clot, (and) then from a lump, formed and unformed, so that We may make (it) clear to you. We establish in the wombs what We please for an appointed time, then We bring you forth as a child, (and) then (We provide for you) so that you may reach your maturity. Among you (there is) one who is taken, and among you (there is) one who is reduced to the worst (stage) of life, so that he knows nothing after (having had) knowledge. And you see the earth withered, but when We send down water on it, it stirs and swells, and grows (plants) of every beautiful kind."
Claimed Miracle: Biology / Embryology
APOLOGIST CLAIM
"The verse details the developmental stages of the human fetus (dust -> semen -> clot -> little lump), hailed as a miraculous scientific revelation."
Refutation & Exegesis
The sequence described (from semen to a blood clot to a lump of flesh) was the standard Near Eastern and Mediterranean understanding of human reproduction. This progression heavily mirrors the works of prominent ancient physicians like Hippocrates and Galen, as well as Jewish Talmudic traditions circulating long before the 7th century. From a modern biological perspective, the text lacks knowledge of the mammalian ovum, relying exclusively on the observable male fluid (nutfah), which classical scholars like Ibn Kathir interpreted as developing into a literal forty-day 'blood clot'—a stage that does not exist in actual embryonic development.
Dehistoricization
Proponents isolate this text to claim divine foresight, deliberately ignoring that the progression from semen to clotted blood was the standard, albeit scientifically inaccurate, medical assumption championed by Hippocrates and Talmudic scholars centuries earlier.