Does the nutfah go to the womb?

- It is stated in the second verse of the chapter of al-Insan that a human being is created from the nutfah of a man and a woman. However, nutfah is lexically described as a drop of water (liquid). Nevertheless, this liquid does not go to the woman’s egg in the womb, only the sperms do; and this liquid is stopped in the cervix in the womb and only the strongest sperms pass through; besides, the woman’s egg is not liquid; it is a cell in the fallopian tube. No reproductive cell is in the nutfah.
- How can we understand it?
- Some people say there is a scientific error. I have read on your website why nutfah is a drop of liquid and it is clearly understood that nutfah is liquid; I have not found any answer; this liquid is stopped in the cervix in the uterus and it does not go to the egg.
- Can you explain it? How should we understand it?

Dear Brother / Sister,

The Quran mentions the nutfah. Embryologically, nutfah is a zygote, i.e., a fertilized egg, and is a single cell. For the formation of the nutfah, a single cell with 46 chromosomes is formed by the mixture of the female’s egg with 23 chromosomes, whose number of chromosomes has been reduced to half and the sperm with 23 chromosomes, whose number of chromosomes has been reduced to half.

That is what the Quran calls nutfah.

Some of those who interpreted and explained the verses regarding the issue might have understood semen instead of nutfah and explained it like that.

As it is known, semen is the glary liquid that comes out of a man and contains sperm. Likewise, the fluid in which a woman’s egg is contained is also glary and is called semen.

The term “nutfah” is not sperm or semen, as some commentators have called it. It is the fertilized egg, the zygote, which is a single cell.

Questions on Islam