Germ Cell as Equivalent to the Qur'anic Term “Nutfah”: A Genetic and Linguistic Approach

Abstract

Magdy Mohamed Zaabal and Wahid Mohamed Ahmed

Germ cells play a unique role in gamete production, genetics and evolution. Therefore, to understand the mechanisms that specify germ cells is a central challenge in developmental and evolutionary biology. Germ cells in mammalian embryos are specified shortly after implantation, emerging from the epiblast that consists of pluripotential cells. Germ cells and somatic cells (or soma) are responsible for the most basic division of cellular function in metazoan biology. Germ cells are the source of heritable genetic variation, and they produce the totipotent zygote from which embryogenesis commences. Embryogenesis depends on a highly coordinated cascade of genetically encoded events. In animals, maternal factors contributed by the egg cytoplasm initially control development, whereas the zygotic nuclear genome is quiescent. Genes expressed during spermatogenesis encode proteins necessary both for general activities and for processes specific to germ cells. The protein product of each Hox gene is a transcription factor. Each Hox gene contains a well-conserved DNA sequence known as the homeobox, of which the term "Hox" was originally a contraction. The term germ cell is equivalent to the term “Nutfah” (sperm) in Arabic. The word “Nutfah” has dozens of meaning. That’s because Arabic language is known as an etymological language, which means that its words are always abundant of synonyms. In the current article we have selected ten Qur'anic verses that explain the meaning of this word and its decisive role in the process of divine creation of man, as it is material basis of fertilization and procreation. From these verses we also, understand that the creation of the “Nutfah”/sperm was the first and fundamental step in the process of the creation of the man. And if we know today that this “Nutfah”/sperm carries within it the genetic makeup of the living being, then this means that at the beginning of creation there were genes, from which, the “fine/delicate/ transparent mixtures “chromosomes” were encoded to create the soul, and the dense mixtures “chromosomes” were encoded to create the somatic cells (body organs) according to Ibn Sina.

PDF