A common objection claims that the Quran locates the origin of semen in the wrong part of the body, and that this is a plain scientific error exposing the book as a human product. When the verse is read in its own language and against what embryology actually says, the objection does not survive scrutiny.
The verse in question
The claim rests on two verses from Surah At-Tariq:
So let man consider from what he was created. He was created from a fluid, ejected, emerging from between the backbone and the ribs.
Quran 86:5-7
Critics read "emerging from between the backbone and the ribs" as a claim that semen is produced in the chest or lower back, rather than in the testicles. Since the testicles sit outside and below the trunk, they conclude the Quran is simply wrong.
The objection rests on a mistranslation
The Arabic phrase is min bayni al-sulbi wa al-tara'ib. Two words are doing the heavy lifting, and both are routinely mishandled in the objection.
- The verse never says "semen is produced there." The subject of the sentence is man ("let man consider... he was created"). The Arabic verb yakhruju ("emerging / coming forth") describes where the process of the human being's creation proceeds from, not the anatomical factory of a fluid. The Quran is speaking about the human's origin, not drawing an anatomical diagram of the reproductive glands.
- "Between the backbone and the ribs" is a region, not a gland. Al-sulb refers to the backbone / loins area and al-tara'ib to the front of the torso (classically, the chest or rib area). Together they describe the central region of the body from which reproductive material and its supply arise.
What embryology actually shows
Far from being an error, the description aligns strikingly with human embryological development, a fact only established with modern anatomy.
During early development, the gonads (the future testicles and ovaries) form high in the abdominal cavity, near the kidneys - precisely in the region between the backbone and the ribs. Only later in gestation do the testicles descend to their final position. Crucially, they keep their original nerve and blood supply from that central region: the testicular arteries branch directly off the abdominal aorta near the kidneys, and the nerves that serve them originate from the same mid-body area. In other words, the functional "root" of the reproductive system genuinely lies between the backbone and the ribs, even in the adult male.
A 7th-century Arabian text had no way to know that the reproductive organs originate near the kidneys and migrate downward. That the language matches this developmental reality is remarkable, not embarrassing.
The objection also proves too much
Notice the shape of the argument. The critic must (1) pick one possible translation over the others, (2) assume the verse is making a claim about gland location rather than the person's origin, and (3) ignore the embryological facts about where those glands actually form. Each step is a choice made against the text in order to manufacture a contradiction. A fair reading requires none of these leaps.
This is a recurring pattern in objections of this kind: a metaphorical or general statement is forced into a narrow, hyper-literal, modern-anatomical reading it was never making, and then faulted for failing a test it was never taking.
Conclusion
The "backbone and ribs" objection is not a valid criticism of the Quran. It depends on a strained translation, a misreading of the sentence's subject, and a disregard for the embryology it claims to invoke. Read honestly, the verse describes the human being's creation as proceeding from the central region of the body - exactly where the reproductive organs first form. What was offered as a flaw turns out to be a point of quiet strength.
For a fuller treatment of the linguistics, the classical tafsir, and the embryology, see our in-depth topic Humans Created Between the Backbone and Ribs?, as well as the related topics listed below.