Early Embryonic Development: A Contemporary Interpretive Reading of Ibn Sina’s Book of Animals (Kitab al- Hayawan) A Quick Closer Look at Ibn Sina’s Scientific Heritage

Abstract

Magdy Mohamed Zaabal, Wahid Mohamed Ahmed, Hesham H. Elkhadrawy and Faragalla M. El Moghazy

The term embryonic development first appeared in Aristotle’s book “Generation of Animals “and for this reason, he rightfully deserves to be considered the first developmental biologist. In the 19th century, Karl Ernst von Baer (1792- 1876) developed modern embryology through his discovery of the blastula stage of development and the notochord and became the first person to observe a human egg. Ibn Sina’s encyclopedic work “The Cure” (ash-Shifaa), the book, renowned as the greatest encyclopedic work in philosophy, comprises three major sections: logic, natural sciences “physics and biology”, and theology. In the second section, Ibn Sina dedicated a unique book entitled: “Book of Animals (Kitab al- Hyawan), in which he explained the basic analysis of early embryonic development and concluded that the change from semen to animal takes place through a series of substantial alterations. The current article represents an effective and logical intersection between more than one scientific, philosophical, and religious field. On one hand, it belongs to the philosophy of science and also the history of biology, while philosophy and genetics combine to formulate this unique scientific content of the theory of embryonic development in two eras separated by more than ten centuries. In this article, we reviewed Ibn Sina’s view of the embryonic development through the alterations (transformation of the matter of fetus (janin) up to its completion. Ibn Sina based his view on two main sources; one of them is a reliable and widely circulated source, namely the Holy Qur’an, for example (Surah Al-Hajj, (The Pilgrimage) No.22/17, verse 5). The second source, is hidden in Ibn Sina’s mind and consciousness, it is his unique intuition that enabled him to see things that others could not. Ibn Sina proved that the process of embryonic development is a qualitative, creative and substantial alteration (transformation), not merely gradual changes.

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