Fire and Earth

They say a parent’s love is eternal; one that can never be equaled. I do not have any children of my own which makes it all the harder for me to imagine what was going through the minds of the six year old boy’s parents when they heard of their son’s demise. The boy was beaten to death by two men, his heart cut out and offered to the “Gods of the Sea”. What makes this story all the more difficult to read is that it transpired in a modern society only fifty two years ago.

The year was 1960, Chile was rocked by the most powerful earthquake ever recorded in human history. This natural phenomenon devastated the country and its economy. Amid the fear that gripped the country, a group of men decided to enact an ignorant and disgusting act of human sacrifice that resulted in the murder of an innocent child.

It seems that earthquakes are not only devastating in their ability to inflict material and human loss, they also seem to instill serious psychological damage and fear among the human populace. I am currently on vacation in the beautiful city of Amman; for years locals have been warned of an impending earthquake. Thankfully this has not happened yet but it has managed to create distress among certain communities. I pray that such horrible events never happen, but earthquakes, unfortunately, are a natural element of our planet’s life span. So, how do earthquakes transpire?  

In 1915, a German meteorologist by the name of Alfred Wegener published an article supporting a controversial theory named “Continental Drift”. According to the theory, the world was previously made up of a single continent. This massive continent split and drifted apart; forming the seven continents we are familiar with today. The theory thus suggests that the position of continents is not fixed - continents are constantly moving like icebergs floating on water. In other words, today’s continents (such as Asia and Africa) may have been in a very different place a long time ago!

Predictably, such controversy was dismissed. The problem with the theory was that no one was able to properly explain why these continents would split or move. This would change a few decades later when Arthur Holmes finally provided the answer. It was proposed that heat transfer from the mantle and core of the Earth to its surface was the driving force behind continental drift.

Dan Mckenzie (1967) finally put things together - “plate tectonic theory” suggests that the Earth’s surface is divided into a number of distinct “plates”. To better understand this, imagine a boiled egg with a cracked shell.

Similarly, the cracks (faults) that stretch across the Earth’s surface divide it into 8 major plates (pieces) and a larger number of smaller plates.

Furthermore, heat transfer from the rocks laying underneath the plates causes them to move. For example, plates could drift apart or crash into one another.

These plate interactions are the cause of phenomena such as earthquakes, volcanoes, and even the creation of mountains!

One can imagine how the movement of plates can create devastating earthquakes. This is especially true when two plates converge (collide). Similarly, volcanos arise from the conversion or diversion of plates; hot magma (fire liquid) escapes the Earth’s interior through deep cracks in the Earth’s crust and flows to the surface.

Plate Tectonic Theory is an extraordinary discovery. It not only enables scientists to explain many of the Earth’s features, it can also help predict future events, and by doing so, protect the lives of many. Let us now investigate how the Earth is described in the Qur’an and see whether the ideas between the two fields match.

Earth and Cracks

Over the past few centuries, Islamic scholars have argued that the Qur’an, once more, describes features of the Earth that have only been discovered in recent times. They frequently mention evidence of the Qur’an’s accurate description of the Earth’s shape and complex internal structure (its layers).

Unfortunately, evidence to such claims (though strong) is not conclusive; this is not to say that these claims are wrong, rather, it comes from a realization that the Qur’an and/or the Science involved is not perfectly clear on the matter and as such, a valid comparison cannot be made at this time. Consequently, I do not intend to include such material in this edition of the book (there will be a future article addressing claims that have been excluded from this volume). However, there is one verse that clearly describes some of the scientific evidence investigated in this Chapter. It is one again, in the form of an oath:  

“And by the Earth that cracks / which spliteth (12) Lo! this (Qur'an) is a conclusive word (13)”

“And by the Earth that is cracked (12) Lo! this (Qur'an) is a conclusive word (13)” [Surat At-Ţariq, 86:12-13]

We have already discussed the importance of oaths in previous chapters. The oath seen above is no less important. Here, Allah swears by the Earth’s fragmented nature which has only been highlighted recently as part of plate tectonic theory[1]. It is quite astonishing that the author of the Qur’an makes mention of this divided and fragmented nature, and then declares that no one can doubt the divinity of the book after reading this verse for it is a conclusive word of truth; a remarkable “coincidence” indeed for those who are skeptical of the scientific knowledge entailed in this verse.