B) The Quran on Mountains: |
A book entitled Earth is a basic reference
textbook in many universities around the world. One of its two authors is
Professor Emeritus Frank Press. He was the Science Advisor to former US
President Jimmy Carter, and for 12 years was the President of the National
Academy of Sciences, Washington, DC. His book says that mountains have
underlying roots.1 These roots are
deeply embedded in the ground, thus, mountains have a shape like a peg (see
figures 7, 8, and 9).
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Figure 7: Mountains have deep roots under the
surface of the ground. (Earth, Press and Siever, p.
413.)
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Figure 8: Schematic section. The mountains,
like pegs, have deep roots embedded in the ground. (Anatomy of the Earth,
Cailleux, p. 220.) (Click on the image to enlarge
it.)
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Figure 9: Another illustration shows how the
mountains are peg-like in shape, due to their deep roots. (Earth Science,
Tarbuck and Lutgens, p. 158.) (Click on the image to enlarge
it.)
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This is how the Quran has described mountains. God
has said in the Quran:
Have We not made the earth as a bed, and the mountains as
pegs?
(Quran, 78:6-7)
Modern earth sciences have proven that mountains have
deep roots under the surface of the ground (see figure 9) and that these roots
can reach several times their elevations above the surface of the ground.2 So the most suitable word to describe
mountains on the basis of this information is the word ‘peg,’ since most of a
properly set peg is hidden under the surface of the ground. The history of
science tells us that the theory of mountains having deep roots was introduced
only in the latter half of the nineteenth century.3
Mountains also play an important role in stabilizing
the crust of the earth.4 They
hinder the shaking of the earth. God has said in the Quran:
And He has set firm mountains in the earth so that it would
not shake with you... (Quran, 16:15)
Likewise, the modern theory of plate tectonics holds
that mountains work as stabilizers for the earth. This knowledge about the role
of mountains as stabilizers for the earth has just begun to be understood in the
framework of plate tectonics since the late 1960’s.5
Could anyone during the time of the Prophet
Muhammad have
known of the true shape of mountains? Could anyone imagine
that the solid massive mountain which he sees before him actually extends deep
into the earth and has a root, as scientists assert? A large number of books of
geology, when discussing mountains, only describe that part which is above the
surface of the earth. This is because these books were not written by
specialists in geology. However, modern geology has confirmed the truth of the
Quranic verses.
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Footnotes:
(1) Earth, Press and
Siever, p. 435. Also see Earth Science, Tarbuck and Lutgens, p. 157.
(2) The Geological Concept of
Mountains in the Quran, El-Naggar, p. 5.
(3) The Geological Concept of
Mountains in the Quran, p. 5.
(4) The Geological Concept of
Mountains in the Quran, pp. 44-45.
(5) The Geological Concept of
Mountains in the Quran, p. 5.
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