C- THE MOUNTAINS CREATED AS PEGS (OR
PICKETS):
The
illustrious Qur’an reads:
(Have We not made the Earth as a levelled expanse * and the
mountains as pegs)* (LXXVIII: 6,7).
Here, I shall comment on the second of these two verses
(verse #7 oniy, despite the great geologic importance of the
preceding verse (#6) which will be treated in another paper.
The description of mountains as pegs (or pickets) clearly
implies that such striking geomorphic features are not just
the lofty elevations that are seen on the surface of the
Earth (as most current glossaries and encyclopaedias defme
them), but their downward extensions in the Earth’s
lithosphere is highly emphasized. In as much as most of the
picket (or peg) is hidden in either soil or rock and its
function is
to hold one end of the tent to the ground surface, modern
Earth Sciences have just proved that mountains possess very
deep roots that stabilize lithospheric plates as well as the
whole planet. What we see of mountains above the ground
surface is nothing but the tops of great masses of rocks
that penetrate the lithosphere and float in a more dense
substratum (the asthenosphere) as icebergs float in oceanic
water. Mountains have downward extensions below the ground
surface that are 10-15 times their outward elevations
(depending on the average density of the rocks of which the
mountain is formed and that of the material in which its
root is immersed).
A mountain mass with an average specific gravity of 2.7
(that of granite) can sink into a layer of plastic simatic
rock (with an average specific gravity of 3.0) until the
range is floating with a submerged part (or root) of about
nine-tenths, and a protrusion of one tenth its total length.
Thus, we can see that by one word (awtad = pegs or pickets)
the Holy Qur’an describes both the outward lofty elevations
of mountains, their very deep, downward extensions (to much
greater depths than their elevations) and their function as
a means of fixation for the whole planet as well as for its
lithospheric plates.
The term “picket” or “peg” which is used by the Holy Qur’an
to describe mountains, is both literally and scientifically
more precise than the term “root” which is currently used to
describe the hidden, downward extensions of mountains.
The fact that mountains have deep downward extensions below
the ground surface and that their main role is to stabilize
the Earth as a planet, and its outer rocky cover
(particularly that constitutes continental plates) have only
been discerned by the specialists veiy recently, although
scientists have
pondered over the possibility of mountains having roots as
early as the second half of the nineteenth century. However,
the process of formation of such downward extensions as well
as their role in halting the sudden, jerky movements of the
planet and of its lithospheric plates have only begun to be
understood in the framework of modern astronomy and of the
very recent concept of plate tectonics (late l960s and early
l970s.
The description of the Holy Qur’an some 14 centuries ago in
branding mountains as pegs (or pickets and in defining their
main role as “stabilizers for the Earth, lest it should
shake with us” is a clear testimony that the Qur’an is the
word of the Creator, and that Mohammad (PBUH) is His final
messenger.
by Dr. Z.R.M. EL-NAGGAR.
The Seventh International Conference on Scientific Signs in
Quran & Sunnah
* In each
of these paired numbers, the first (or the Roman Number)
indicates the number of the Qur’anic chapter (or Surah),
while the second (or the Arabic Number) indicates the number
of the Qur’anic verse or verses (Ayah or Ayat) in the Surah
(chapter).
* MYBP = Million Years Before Present |
