Botany and Surat At-Tin (3/3)

Swearing an oath by Mount Sinai

 This is Mount Tur in Sinai, or the Mountain of Moses where the Torah was revealed to Moses. It is mentioned in 12 ayahs in the Qur’an (in Surat Al-Baqara: ayahs 63, 93, Surat An-Nisa’: 154, Surat Al-A’raaf: 143, 171, Surat Maryam: 52, Surat Ta-Ha: 80, Surat Al-Mu’minun: 20, Surat Al-Qasas: 29, 46, Surat At-Tur: 1 and Surat At-Tin: 2). One Surah (chapter) even bears its name (Surat At-Tur). It is, of course, a blessed place worthy of having an oath sworn by it.

Swearing by the City of Security

 The City of Security is the Noble city of Makkah where the first place of worship for mankind was built. The Messenger of Allah (Peace be upon him) said, “The Ka’ba was a small hill over water, then the earth formed under it”, meaning that the earth under the Ka’ba is the first piece of land to have appeared on the surface of the huge ocean that covered Earth in the beginning. Then land started to spread around this blessed place to form a continent called the “mother continent” (Pangaea). Pangaea was then divided, forming the seven continents. These continents were much closer to each other than they are now. Later, they started drifting away from each other or colliding with each other until they settled in their current locations. Scientifically, it has been proved that Makkah is and was the center of land throughout all phases of Earth’s development. In other words, if one draws a circle with Makkah at the center, the circle would completely surround the solid land on earth. Allah (Glorified and Exalted be He) says in the Qur’an what can be translated as, “The first house (of worship) appointed for men was that at Bakka: full of blessing and of guidance for all kinds of beings” (Surat Ali-Imran, (Family of Imran): 96).

These ayahs that compare the earth (in its smallness) with the heavens (with its large dimensions) point to the earth being the center of the universe as does the ayah which talks about the separation and the unification of the earth and the heavens. If the earth was the center of the universe and the Ka’ba was the center of the land on the primary earth, then below it are six layers of earth, above it seven skies, making the Noble Ka’ba the center of the center of the universe. The Messenger of Allah (Peace be upon him) said, “The shrine of Makkah, is a midpoint shrine; it is centralized between seven layers of earth and seven layers of skies”.

He further emphasizes this fact by saying, “O people of Quraysh, O people of Makkah, you all stand parallel to the center of heaven!” Also, the Messenger of Allah (Peace be upon him) once asked his honorable companions, “Do you know what the Bait al-Ma’mur is?” They replied, “Allah and His Messenger know best”. He said, “It is a house in the seventh heaven exactly above the K’aba, if it fell, I would fall right over it. Seventy thousand angels enter into it every day; when the last of them come out they do not return there again”.

All these miracles make Makkah the place that Muslims turn to five times daily in prayers and their place of pilgrimage in which one prayer is equivalent to one thousand prayers elsewhere. It was also the hometown of many Prophets.

The Messenger of Allah (Peace be upon him) said, “When their nations perished, Prophets used to migrate to Makkah, stay there with their followers, and worship Allah until they died. Noah, Hud, Salah, and Shu’aib all died in Makkah and were buried between Zamzam well and the black stone”.

Prophet Isma’il (Ishmael) and his mother Hagar were both buried at Hajr Ismail, a place in Makkah. Allah also chose Makkah to be the birth place of His last Messenger. He swore by the city in Surat At-Tin and Surat Al-Balad (The City) which He named after Makkah. Allah gave Makkah the epithet of ‘the mother of all cities’ (Ummul Qura) as it was the place where land first appeared and is subsequently the mother of all the earth. Makkah is thus worthy of having an oath sworn by it and of being called the ‘City of Security’ in Surat At-Tin, and was worthy of having a Surat named after it, Al-Balad.

These scientific facts about the fig and the olive, about Makkah, the city of security and the historical and religious facts concerning the meeting between Allah and his servant, Moses, on Mount Tur, were all facts unknown to the inhabitants of the Arabian peninsula and to all mankind at the time of their revelation 1400 years ago and for many centuries after. The oath by the fig and the olive could never be one taken by man; it is the word of Allah and the proof of the Prophethood of His last Messenger, Muhammad (Peace be upon him). It proves that the Messenger of Allah (Peace be upon him) received the inspiration from Gabriel and was taught by the Creator of the heavens and earth, Allah.