Mountains as tent pegs...

One of the more persistent miracle claims, and one that seems to over-excite a certain type of believer, is the role of mountains in the Earth’s geological processes, as apparently described in the Qur’an. “Kevin” had suggested some time ago that these references in the Qur’an to mountains were an example of miraculous divine knowledge and had recently sent me some material from (you’ve guessed it) the iERA. Before we examine this material and the claims in more detail, let us look at the qur’anic verses that refer to mountains. I have gone with YusufAli’s translations as this appears to be the version preferred by believers for this particular miracle because of the word peg (Pickthall prefers “bulwarks” and Shakir “projections” for example).

78:6-7: Have We not made the earth as a wide expanse,
78:7: And the mountains as pegs?
(88:17-19 : Do they not look at the Camels, how they are made?-
 And at the Sky, how it is raised high?-)
 And at the Mountains, how they are fixed firm?-
79:32 : And the mountains hath He firmly fixed;-
21:31 : And We have set on the earth mountains standing firm, lest it should shake with them, and We have made therein broad highways (between mountains) for them to pass through: that they may receive Guidance.

(I include 88:17-18 as well as 19 purely to give context and so that you may wonder, along with the believers, at “how camels are made”...)

In summary then, we have mountains as pegs, which are firmly fixed and which apparently stop the Earth from shaking.

You may wonder if, like me, you are a non-believer and thus destined to be tortured for an eternity by the merciful Allah, what all the fuss is about. There appears to be little here to convince one of a divinely inspired, omniscient author. In fact quite the opposite, as there is a  rather obvious error in that mountains don’t prevent the Earth from shaking (one has only to look at the number of earth quakes in geologically active mountainous areas such as Japan to see this). So let’s see how the iERA deal with this...

The Qur’an always mentions nature as a sign for God’s existence, power and majesty. Every time these are mentioned, they are expressed with a great accuracy, and they also give us information that could have never been known at the time of the Prophet Muhammad. One of these signs includes the function and structure of mountains. The Qur’an mentions that mountains have “peg” like structures and that they have been embedded into earth to stabilise it, a concept known in Geology as isostasy. The Qur’an mentions: “We placed firmly embedded mountains on the earth, so it would not move under them…” and “Have We not made the earth as a bed and the mountains its pegs?” The Qur’an’s eloquent renderings of the facts mentioned above are confirmed by modern science which only came to be understood by the end of the 20th Century. In the book Earth, by Dr. Frank Press, former president of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, states that mountains are like stakes, and are buried deep under the surface of Earth. With regards to the vital role of mountains, it was formerly understood that mountains were merely protrusions rising above the surface of Earth. However, scientists realised that this was not actually the case, and that the parts known as the mountain roots extended down as far as 10 to 15 times their own height. With these features, mountains play a similar role to a nail or peg firmly holding down a tent, which has been discovered by modern geological and seismic research, a concept known as isostasy.  In conclusion, how can we explain this in the light of the fact that this is relatively recent science (with no one at the time of the revelation knowing this information)? What does this tell you about the author? Again, there is no naturalistic explanation.

Here is what I sent to “Kevin”.

Thanks for the reference to mountains as pegs. I was disappointed but not surprised to learn the name of the expert quoted.

In the same way that one particular edition of one book by Keith Moore has been used by the miracle-seekers hoping to give some semblance of respectability to their claims for embryology, so I have discovered that Dr.Frank Press appears to be fulfilling much the same role for the mountains as pegs miracle. As far as I can ascertain, he seems to be the go-to guy to support the idea that mountains act like pegs and help stabilise the Earth. Put another way, wherever one looks to get to the bottom of this, Frank Press's 24 year-old book is there on ALL THE ISLAMIC SITES. If the scientific geological community thought that mountains acted like pegs you'd have thought that it would have appeared somewhere else...