II.2. QUR’AN AND GEOGRAPHICAL PHENOMENA
II.2.1.GEOGRAPHICAL PHENOMENA
{Say: travel through the earth and see how God did originate creation.}
[XXIX: 20]
Whenever the Qur’an wants to draw our attention to a particular scientific truth, it invites us to make research and observations since they are the best way to empirical knowledge. In this verse the Glorious Qur’an invites us to go through the earth in order to see how God originated creation. Of course we cannot do so without help of excavations, geophysics, geology, etc.
“Lord Haton said his famous words in the wake of which geology was born: ‘Verily the Earth’s history is written among the folds of its crust.’ Certainly, that script was neither in Arabic nor in English… it was in the language of excavations. The scientist’s function is the collection of these excavations; after that he tries to see what relates one another so as to infer a hierarchical history of the earth…” (Al Fandi: 1976, p.307)
So the more new discoveries are made in the domain of geology, the more the scientific statements in the Holy Qur’an about geological phenomena are found to be soundly true.
{Seest thou that God sends down rain from the sky? With it We then bring out produce of various colours. And in the mountains are tracts white and red of various shades, and black intense in hue.}
[XXXV: 27]
Ali (1938, fn.3911, p.1161) comments on this verse:
“…The wonderful colours and shades of colours are to be found not only in vegetation but in rocks and mineral products. There are the white veins of marble and quartz or chalk, the red laterite, the blue basaltic rocks, the ink-black flints, and all the variety, shade and gradation of colours. Taking mountains into consideration, we think of their ‘azure hue’ due to atmospheric effects…”
This is what Dr.Zaki (no date, p.97) clarifies when he states that there are three kinds of rocks. One of these are the igneous such as the granite and the basalt. If we examine a specimen of these igneous rocks, we notice that it contains crystals that are either white or red or black.
When the Qur’an speaks about the mountains, it always states that they are created to maintain the balance of the earth’s crust. This scientific truth is stated in several suras, such as:
{He set on the (earth), mountains standing firm, high above it.}
[XLI: 10]
{Have We not made the earth as wide expanse. And the mountains as pegs.}
[LXXVIII: 6-7]
{He set on the earth mountains standing firm, lest it should shake with you.}
[XXXI: 10]
One can also check the following verses [XV:19], [XIII:3], [XVI:15], [XXI:31], [XXVII:61]. What is worth mentioning is that whenever the Holy Qur’an talks about mountains, it almost mentions rivers immediately after that and sometimes before:
{And it is He Who spread out the earth, and set thereon mountains standing firm, and (flowing) rivers.}
[XIII: 3]
This verse shows that besides keeping the stability of the earth’s crust, mountains play an important role in forming rivers. This process happens by means of erosion.
{Or, who has made the earth firm to live in; made rivers in its midst; set thereon mountains immovable; and made a separating bar between the two bodies of flowing water? (Can there be another) god besides God? Nay, most of them know not.}
[XXVII: 61]
In addition to the function of the mountains just expressed in the verse, the Qur’an states that there is a barrier, which separates the salt water from the fresh one. This barrier, explains Qutb (1987, V.5, p.2658), is in general a natural bar since the level of rivers is mostly higher than that of the seas and oceans. Even when the contrary occurs, this barrier keeps on existing because of the density of the seawater and the river water(fresh water). The latter becomes light, and the former turns heavy. So the watercourse of each remains distinct without mixing or even transgressing each other. Dr. Khidr (1985, p.167) points out that this phenomenon is known as surface tension.
{He has let free the two bodies of flowing water, meeting together: between them is a Barrier, which they do not transgress. Then which of the favours of your Lord ye deny?}
[LV19-20]
In the past this scientific truth was not known, but concentrated studies and research made by oceanographers, like Jack Cousteau, enabled them to come across this ultimate reality. They have even found springs of fresh water springing from insides seas and oceans. Yet the fresh water keeps its own particular characteristics.
When the Qur’an speaks about springs, it states that they are fed by rainwater. This truth is stated in several verses. One may pay no heed to its importance unless one stops to examine the ideas that were prevailing in the past, concerning the way springs come into existence.
“It is worth pausing to…call to mind the predominance in the Middle Ages of views such as those held by Aristotle, according to whom springs were fed by underground lakes. In his entry on Hydrology…in the…Encyclopaedia Universalis, M.R. Remenieras… [explains]: ‘It was until the Renaissance…that purely philosophical concepts gave way to research based on the objective observation of hydrologic phenomena….Bernard Pallissy in his ‘wonderful discourse on the nature of waters and fountains both natural and artificial’ (Paris, 1570)…gives a correct interpretation of the water cycle and especially of the way springs are fed by rainwater’.” (Bucaille: 1985, p.185)
The last statement said by B. Pallissy, in which he shows that springs are fed by rainwater, agrees with several verses, which stated the same truth a long time before his theory that “was confirmed by E. Mariotte and P. Perrault in the Seventeenth century.” (Ibid. p.181)
{And We send down water from the sky according to (due) measure, and We cause it to soak in the soil.}
[XXIII: 18]
{Seest thou not that God sends down rain from the sky and leads it through springs in the earth?}
[XXXIX: 21]