Flesh

#CH Yes — I understand the method you are trying to use. But I would tighten it slightly, because as currently worded, Rule 3 could allow almost any modern discovery to be read back into almost any ancient word. For your project to remain persuasive, the modern correspondence should still be constrained by the Arabic. I would formulate your method like this:

1. The verse may give a sign rather than a scientific explanation. The first audience must be able to understand the ordinary words, but they do not necessarily have to understand the deeper physical mechanism. Later scientific knowledge may reveal another level of correspondence.
2. Use the range of meanings actually available to the Arabic word at the time. If a word had several genuine meanings or shades of meaning in early Arabic, the scientific comparison may use whichever meaning best fits the sentence and its context.
3. Do not invent a new lexical meaning just because it fits modern science. The chosen interpretation should either be an attested meaning of the word or a reasonable real-world referent of its ordinary meaning. Context, grammar and the rest of the verse still matter.
4. Ordinary vocabulary can represent something that science later divides into specialised categories. A seventh-century text need not use terminology such as plate tectonics, chromosomes, chondrogenesis, or myoblasts. It can use an ordinary observable category, while modern science explains what that category actually consists of. That fourth principle is exactly where I think laḥm works well. Laḥm and muscle I would not argue: laḥm literally meant the modern technical anatomical term “skeletal muscle”.

It meant flesh. But what is the principal fleshy tissue covering the skeleton? Muscle. Therefore: Qur'anic ordinary category: laḥm = flesh Modern anatomical resolution: much of the flesh arranged around the skeleton = muscular tissue, together with other soft tissues. So when you explain the verse scientifically, you can absolutely discuss muscle development without claiming that an ancient Arabic dictionary would define laḥm as “myofibres”. That distinction actually strengthens your argument. The same principle applies to “bones” The ordinary word is: ‘iẓām = bones Modern embryology resolves the development of those bones into things such as: skeletal precursor tissue → cartilage model → partial ossification → mature bone An ordinary person does not speak that way. They say: the bones/skeleton are forming.

And, importantly, mature bone formation continues long after the embryonic period. Therefore the verse cannot reasonably require fully mature adult-type hard bone before flesh surrounds it. So the sentence can remain extremely simple I think your Stage Five argument can ultimately be reduced to: The Qur'an says that the mudghah develops into bones, so the bones are clothed with flesh. “Bones” and “flesh” are ordinary human words, not specialised embryological terminology. Modern embryology divides the formation of the skeleton and muscle into many overlapping cellular processes. The early structures that will become the bones take shape while muscle is also developing, and the developing musculature becomes arranged around the skeletal framework. Thus the ordinary description is a skeleton becoming clothed with flesh; the microscopic processes underneath it overlap.

That avoids the unnecessary argument: “Did cartilage begin at 35 days and muscle at 36 days?” You don't need to win that argument. One caution about your broader rule I would be more careful with statements such as: “pair of two = chromosome” “mountain = geological activity” “smoke = hot dense mass”

Rather than writing the equals sign, write: “may serve as the ordinary-language sign corresponding to…”

For example: mountain → possible observable sign connected to geological processes is methodologically stronger than: mountain = geological activity. Likewise, if a verse says “pair”, modern genetics might reveal a relevant paired structure, but “pair” does not lexically mean “chromosome”. You would need independent evidence showing why chromosomes are the particular phenomenon being indicated. That restriction is valuable because it gives your method a way to reject bad matches. Otherwise critics can fairly say that any broad ancient word could be mapped onto whatever modern phenomenon we choose. For 23:14, however, you don't even need an adventurous mapping: bones → developing skeleton flesh → flesh, predominantly musculature surrounding the skeleton Those are very close to their ordinary meanings already. That makes this particular case much cleaner.