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WATER
Image: http:www.freestockphotos.com
Water in Islam:
Water is the natural resource maybe the most present in the sacred texts of Islam. Not
only it is constantly evoked, but it also evokes several meanings.
But maybe the most interesting feature is the fact that the water’s natural cycles are described in
detail in the Qur’an itself.
(The unbelievers state) is like the depths of darkness in a vast deep ocean, overwhelmed
with billow topped by billow, topped by (dark) clouds: Depths of darkness, one above
another: If a man stretches out his hand, he can hardly see it! For any to whom Allah
does not give light, there is no light.
[Qur’an 24:40].
This verse about the state of people who are not Muslims is a miracle in itself. One should read it
over and over again to feel how deep it is.
The verse is a miracle in two ways: because of its scientific accuracy and because of the accuracy
of the parable (the image that comes up into one’s mind while reading it).
Allah Ta’alah could have chosen the darkness of the night in order to explain how lost
unbelievers are, but the comparison with the depth of the sea is even stronger than it is
unexpected, especially at the time of the Prophet (PBUH) when nobody was able to dive deep
enough into the sea to tell if the sea depths had layers of darkness or not.
Scientists now have explored the sea’s darkness by means of submarines. Human beings can
only dive unaided for twenty to thirty meters deep. This darkness is caused by water waves, and
also by the absorption of colors at the different levels that are layered one over the other.
The fact to compare the unbelievers moving about the darkness of the sea is a very
effective description. There are many different layers or depths in everybody as far as sins are
concerned and also the awareness: some people are completely in the dark about the revelations
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of life, some other have almost understood what life really is and that only Islam is the way. For
those who are completely lost, it seems that there is almost no hope for them like a person
stretching his hand in the dark in a middle of the ocean, reaching for nothing and only concerned
about his present desires and safety.
The Qur’an goes on to say:
And He sends down hail from mountains (clouds) in the sky, and He strikes with it whomever
He wills, and turns it from whoever He wills. The vivid flash of its lightning nearly blinds the
sight.
[Qur'aan 24:43]
Scientists have studied clouds and noticed that they can predict the weather by looking at
them. The shapes of clouds depend on winds.
One kind of rain cloud is the cumulonimbus cloud associated with thunderstorms.
Scientists have found that cumulonimbus clouds go through the following steps to produce rain:
clouds are pushed by the wind; then they join together forming a larger cloud. When the small
clouds join together, updrafts within the larger cloud increase. The updrafts near the center of the
cloud are stronger than those near the edges. These updrafts cause the cloud’s body to grow
vertically, so the cloud is stacked up. This vertical growth causes the cloud body to stretch into
cooler regions of the atmosphere where drops of water and hail formulate and begin to grow
larger and larger. When these drops of water and hail become too heavy for the updrafts to
support them, they begin to fall from the clouds as rain, hail, etc.
Meteorologists have found that these cumulonimbus clouds, showering hail, reach a height of
25,000 to 30,000 feet (4.7 to 5.7 miles), like mountains, as the Qur'an says.
So the Qur’an really describes the water cycles in the sky as well as the nature of the
waters in the oceans. These examples are but a few in the Qur’an. Most of the time the Qur’an
speaks about how the rain falls on the earth and revives it; it tells that there is much wisdom by
looking at all forms the water takes, and those who are wise enough to think about it receive a
great Benediction.
Behold! In the creation of the heavens and the earth; in the alternation of the night and
the day; in the sailing of the ships through the ocean for the profit of mankind; in the rain
which Allah Sends down from the skies, and the life which He gives therewith to an earth
that is dead; in the beasts of all kinds that He scatters through the earth; in the change of
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