http://www.humanreligions.info/sura_96.html
By Vexen Crabtree 2013
Title: Al-Alaq
English: The Clot
Location: Makkah
Traditional Order:
< Sura 95 (At-Tin - The Fig)
> Sura 97 (Al-Qadr - The Power)
Chronological Order:
|| Quran Overview
> Sura 68 (Al-Qalam - The Pen)
Verses: 19
“The first revelation occurred on the slope of Mount Hira outside the town of Mecca in western Arabia in the year 610. The archangel Gabriel (Jibra'il) appeared to Muhammad holding a scroll in his hand and commanded him to read it, saying iqra'! (Read!). [Muhammad] repeated the words after him, reciting the first five verses of what is now the 96th chapter of the Qur'an.”
"Islam: A Brief History" by Paul Lunde (2003)1
| 1 | Recite: In the Name of thy Lord who created, | Sura 96:1-2 appears on Islam and Science: Errors in the Qur'an and Arab Education: 2. Biology Mistakes. |
| 2 | created Man of a blood-clot. | |
| 3 | Recite: And thy Lord is the Most Generous, | |
| 4 | who taught by the Pen, | |
| 5 | taught Man that he knew not. | |
| 6 | No indeed; surely Man waxes insolent, | |
| 7 | for he thinks himself self-sufficient. | |
| 8 | Surely unto thy Lord is the Returning. | |
| 9 | What thinkest thou? He who forbids | |
| 10 | a servant when he prays -- | |
| 11 | What thinkest thou? If he were upon guidance | |
| 12 | or bade to godfearing -- | |
| 13 | What thinkest thou? If he cries lies, and turns away - | |
| 14 | Did he not know that God sees? | |
| 15 | No indeed; surely, if he gives not over, We shall seize him by the forelock, | |
| 16 | a lying, sinful forelock. | |
| 17 | So let him call on his concourse! | |
| 18 | We shall call on the guards of Hell. | |
| 19 | No indeed; do thou not obey him, and bow thyself, and draw nigh. |
It's not a good start; the blood-clot statement is manifestly untrue as we now know for sure how the human species was formed - at no point was it from a blood clot. "Taught by the pen" is also untrue; the vast majority of religious instruction previous to the Archangel Gabriel giving this scroll to Muhammad has been oral, taught by the mouth, not by the pen. If it refers to the eternal copy of the Qur'an held in heaven, then, this itself wasn't what has taught mankind previously - that's still down to oral transmission.
"Taught humanity what it knew not" is an unfortunate phrase, given that scientists have had to correct the blod-clot mistake, and the vast majority of human knowledge has been attained by human effort, not by divine help.