“We set firm mountains upon the earth lest it should move away with you...

“We set firm mountains upon the earth lest it should move away with you;” (16:15) And now let us take a look at the surface of the earth with all its mountains, seas, valleys, rivers, deserts, gulfs…etc. Do you think that they are all fixed in their places? Furthermore, do you believe that they are still the same as Allah, the Most Exalted, founded them? Alternatively, do they transform and change?

The fact that we ought to know and keep in mind is that the surface of the earth is in a state of constant change, but one that is so slow that it cannot be noticed in thousands of years. The slow changes take place due to the activity of a number of atmospheric and natural factors, the most important of which is the differences in temperatures whether between day and night or between winter and summer which cause the earth’s crust to crack and crumble. Winds, rains, floods, rivers.

and waves play also an important role in eroding the rocks and carrying the crumbled particles to lower sea depths, where they form sedimentary lavers. These factors are called eroding factors, which play an amazingly contradictory role; for it erodes on the one hand and forms new rocks on the other hand. In this context, we can distinguish four distinct kinds of rocks, according to the way they were formed: 1- Igneous Rocks: such as granite and Basalt.

2- Sedimentary Rocks: such as limestone and sandstone. 3- Transformed Rocks: These rocks were originally igneous or sedimentary rocks but were transformed by heat, pressure and other factors, and changed into marble, slate or other such rocks. It is generally admitted nowadays that the face of the earth did not remain the same throughout the ages.

Rather it has undergone, as we mentioned above, an on-going process of change in which the eroding factors were able to wipe out mountains and fill its sediments at the depths of seas and oceans. These sedimentary layers will cause floods that would overflow the continents carrying with them various precipitates, which the land cannot carry, their weight.

Consequently, a new phase of the geological cycle would be initiated, in the form of an unruly revolution that would end in the formation of new mountains, which in turn will be subjected to the same natural factors, and the whole circle will be repeated again.