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God has said in the
Quran:
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Al-Quran,
Chapter 24 An-Nur, Verse 40 |
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In
the Name of Allah, The Benevolent, The Merciful |
Or (the unbelievers’ state) is like
the darkness in a deep sea. It is covered by
waves, above which are waves, above which are clouds. Darknesses, one above
another. If a man stretches out his hand, he cannot
see it. And he for whom Allah hath not appointed light, for
him there is no light. |
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This verse mentions the darkness found in deep
seas and oceans, where if a man stretches out his hand, he cannot see
it. The darkness in deep seas and oceans is found around a depth of
200 meters and below. At this depth, there is almost no light (see
figure 1). Below a depth of 1000 meters there is no light at
all.1 Human beings are not able to dive more than forty
meters without the aid of submarines or special equipment. Human
beings cannot survive unaided in the deep dark part of the oceans, such as
at a depth of 200 meters.
Scientists have recently discovered this
darkness by means of special equipment and submarines that have enabled
them to dive into the depths of the oceans. We can also understand from the following
sentences in the previous verse, “...in a deep
sea. It is covered by waves, above which are waves, above which are
clouds....”, that the deep waters of seas and oceans are covered by
waves, and above these waves are other waves. It is clear that the
second set of waves are the surface waves that we see, because the verse
mentions that above the second waves there are clouds. But what
about the first waves? Scientists have recently discovered that
there are internal waves which “occur on density interfaces between layers
of different densities.”2 (see figure 2).
The internal waves cover the deep
waters of seas and oceans because the deep waters have a higher density
than the waters above them. Internal waves act like surface
waves. They can also break, just like surface waves. Internal
waves cannot be seen by the human eye, but they can be detected by
studying temperature or salinity changes at a given
location.3
Long before science discovered these facts they were already
pointed out in the Quran. how could this be? Something to
think about!
Footnotes:
(1) Oceans, Elder
and Pernetta, p. 27.
(2) Oceanography,
Gross, p. 205.
(3) Oceanography,
Gross, p. 205.
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Figure 1: Between 3 and 30 percent
of the sunlight is reflected at the sea surface. Then almost all of
the seven colors of the light spectrum are absorbed one after another in
the first 200 meters, except the blue light. (Oceans, Elder and
Pernetta, p. 27.) |
