Sunday, May 10, 2020

CIRA international zoology confusion; honey from bee's belly in 16:69?

In answer to the video "Bees Make Honey in the Bodies - Scientific Miracles of the Quran Ep. 8"



16:69"Then eat of all the fruits (thamaraat) and walk in the ways of your Lord submissively. There comes forth from within it a beverage of many colours, in which there is healing for men; most surely there is a sign in this for a people who reflect"

The Arabic for fruit in the sense of apples, oranges etc. is faakiha as in 38:51,43:73,44:55 etc.
Thamaraat (plural) comes from the root TH-M-R and it means the product of the tree of fruit and otherwise. It is conceptually used to point to any product of anything. The verb is athmara (to produce) as in 6:141 where we are told to eat from the tree's product (thamarihi) when it produces (athmara). The word implies that what the tree produces are fruits but it does not mean fruits in every context it is used.

Here are a few examples from the Quran;
-14:37,28:57 (any type of product of the earth that can be used to sustain human life)
-2:25 (the product of one's good deeds in heaven)
-2:155,18:42 (the product of one's effort or the wealth)
-7:130 (the ruining of Pharaoh's crops/earth product)
-2:266,47:15 (all kinds of products, fruits or else found in heaven)

16:69 says that the bee eats from all kinds of PRODUCTS at-thamaraat (not from all kinds of FRUITS fakiha). Earth and plant products include flowers. Although, bees certainly do eat fruits as well if given the opportunity, the Quran here did not state so. It could have used the specific word for fruits/fakiha, as it does in many places. It has instead eloquently used a word that includes fruits, as well as other plant and earth products.

16:69 further says that there comes forth from within the bees a variety of beverages (shirab) containing benefits for mankind. The Quran here could have said 'asal as it does elsewhere 47:15 if it meant honey. But again, as with the use of thamaraat, it has eloquently avoided a restricted word and instead uses a broader term adapted to the honey making process. Honey begins as a type of beverage coming out of the bee's stomach. Bees first extract nectar through their mouth tube, then store it in their extra stomach, also called the honey stomach or crop. It is a pocket inside their abdomen, a little in front of the ventriculus, the other stomach they use to digest their food. Inside this honey stomach, the nectar mixes with enzymes that modify its chemical compostion. The resulting liquid is regurgitated and drank by another bee. The process is repeated until the partially digested nectar is deposited into a honeycomb.

At that point, bees start fanning the honeycomb with their wings so as to evaporate the water, resulting in honey. It is thus accurate for the Quran to say that a drink comes out from within the bee. Eventually, that drink, once processed becomes beneficial for humans.

As a side note, it is interesting that the gender used for the working honey bee, is the feminine, since the females are the ones collecting the nectar. All the verbs related to the bee are in the 2nd person feminine singular form (attakhidhi/take, kuli/eat, asluki/follow). This is because in the singular, the bee is in the feminine form nahlat. In the plural, it assumes the irregular masculine form nahel. It is common in Arabic to interchange between genders in the plural.

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