Page 176 - Allah's Miracles in the Qur'an

Allah's Miracles in the Qur'an

There is instruction for you in cattle. From the contents of their bellies,
from between the dung and blood, We give you pure milk to drink,
easy for drinkers to swallow. (Qur'an, 16:66)
The basic materials which allow the nourishment of the body
come about as a result of chemical changes in the digestive system.
These digested substances then pass through the wall of the intestine
into the blood stream. Due to the circulation of the blood, the nutri-
ments reach the relevant organs.

Like the other bodily tissues, the milk glands are nourished by
nutriments brought to them by the blood. The blood therefore plays a
most important role in the collection of nutriments from foodstuffs.
Milk is secreted by the milk glands after all these stages and its nutri-
tional values are particularly high.
Human beings are unable to directly consume either the half-
digested food in an animal's stomach or an animal's blood.
Furthermore, the direct consumption of these or any of their com-
pounds can lead to severe illness, and even death. Thanks to the
exceedingly complex biological systems He has created, Allah provides
clean and healthy food for human beings from these fluids.
This is because it forms as a result of digested food being carried

by the blood. High-nutrition milk is thus produced from blood, which
cannot be consumed directly, and semi-digested food.
The formation of milk is by itself an enormous miracle of creation.
And it is another miracle altogether that such detailed information
about that formation should be contained in the Qur'an.
As we have seen, the information about the biological formation
of milk in Surat an-Nahl 66, is in great accordance with the facts estab-
lished by modern science. It is quite clear that such information, requir-
ing detailed knowledge of mammals' digestive systems, could not have

been known at the time when the Qur'an was revealed.

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