Time to give the first example of how Muslim scholars strive to mislead people by ascribing the grammatical features of their scripture’s (Koran) language (Arabic) to its alleged divine origin through an irrational connection between a certain verse and a certain scientific fact.
FEMALE HONEYBEES IN THE KORAN
We all have heard from Muslim preachers how miraculously Mohammed’s bible conforms to modern scientific discoveries and even predicts them 1400 years before their fulfillment. Nevertheless, these days more and more people realize that this sort of an Islamic propaganda aims to support the common claims of Koran’s uniqueness and divine origin. All of these supposed miracles related to scientific predictions in the Koran are continuously derived from some verses condemned to perversion. Whenever Muslim scholars fail to understand a verse or feel threatened by its problematic structure, they make use of this legend of scientific miracles by distorting Allah’s message or by simply telling lies about it.
One of the Islamic websites dedicated to the research of scientific miracles in the Koran praises the Islamic scripture for demonstrating divine wisdom in a verse describing honeybees.
– Worker bees being female (Quran 16:68)
A subtle yet extraordinary precision in describing a natural phenomenon occurs in Q.16:68: “And your Lord inspired the bee, (saying), 'Take for yourself dwellings in hills, on trees and in what they (mankind) build.’” The imperative “take” above is the translation of the Arabic word “ittakhidhi”, which is a **feminine form **(for Arabic verbs, unlike English ones, differentiate between the sexes). In Arabic, the female form is used when all those it refers to are female, whereas the masculine is used when a group contains at least one male. Therefore the Quran is in fact saying: “Take for yourself, you female bees, dwellings…”
A swarm of bees comprises three types: a queen, the worker bees who collect honey and build the hive, and the male drones, whose sole purpose is to impregnate the queen and are then killed off by the worker bees. These worker bees are all females with underdeveloped sex organs. Thus the phrasing of this command in the Qur’an is in perfect correspondence with the fact that male bees do not participate in the construction of the hive or “dwelling”, which is the sole work of the females. (
ilaam.net/Articles/AuthenticQuran.html )
This website (like many Muslims) asserts that the Koran knew the gender of the working group of honeybees! We have a few objections:
First, the female imperative in the Koran verse will rather naturally escape the notice of people reading them in English since the so-called miraculous information is bound to the rules of the Arabic grammar! What Muslim scholars choose to ignore is that it is impossible and irrational to consider the verse in question miraculous with regard to the scientific facts about honeybees since what forces the Koran to address the honeybee with a gendered (feminine) imperative is neither its supposed divine origin nor its familiarity with the scientific facts of our time, but only the linguistic feature of the language (Arabic) it was written in! Arabic always - within and without the Koran - ascribes female gender to honeybees in general, even to the male ones!!!
Second, it is a linguistic fact that Arabic is not the only language in the world to attach female gender to honeybees and other certain species. For instance, the Italian equivalent of the word honeybee is l’ape di miele (la ape di miele), which is definitely a feminine noun. Thus, Muslim scholars should accept that a non-Muslim of Arabic origin would have pointed out this “scientific fact” whenever he/she used the word honeybee in Arabic long before the Koran was written.
Finally, we should check what a Christian saint of the fourth century wrote about honeybees. The following excerpt is taken from one of the homilies of St. Basil, the Bishop of Caesarea, who was one of the most distinguished Doctors of the Church. Born probably 329; died 1 January, 379. He ranks after Athanasius as a defender of the Oriental Church against the heresies of the fourth century.
Take the bee for your model, which constructs its cells without injuring any one and without interfering with the goods of others. It gathers openly wax from the flowers with its mouth, drawing in the honey scattered over them like dew, and injects it into the hollow of its cells. Thus at first honey is liquid; time thickens it and gives it its sweetness. The book of Proverbs has given the bee the most honorable and the best praise by calling
her wise and industrious. How much activity
she exerts in gathering this precious nourishment, by which both kings and men of low degree are brought to health! How great is the art and cunning
she displays in the construction of the store houses which are destined to receive the honey! After having spread the wax like a thin membrane,
she distributes it in contiguous compartments which, weak though they are, by their number and by their mass, sustain the whole edifice. Each cell in fact holds to the one next to it, and is separated by a thin partition; we thus see two or three galleries of cells built one upon the other. The bee takes care not to make one vast cavity, for fear it might break under the weight of the liquid, and allow it to escape. See how the discoveries of geometry are mere by-works to the **wise **bee! (
newadvent.org/fathers/32018.htm)
Isn’t it amazing that a Christian saint born centuries before Mohammad describes honeybees as wise female creatures that produce honey?
