Minerals Miracle in the Quran

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The Quran mentions mountains of various colors. Some Islamic apologists claim that it's a scientific miracle.

Claim

Different minerals have different colors. But it is very rare to see the same mountain streaked with different colors.

But 1400 years ago this was portrayed in the Quran:

Quran 35.28 Have you not seen that Allah sends down water from the sky? With it We produce fruits of various colors. And in the mountains are streaks of white and red, varying in their hue and pitch-black.

Mountains with streaked colors. But there is no such thing in the desert of Arabia; this image is from Peru.

How could an illiterate man who lived 1400 years ago have known about streaked colorful mountains?


The quoted verse is actually 35:27, not 35:28.

The verse

In the first part of the verse, Allah is mentioned in the 3rd person, but then the author of the Quran starts using first person plural:

Do you not see that Allah sends down rain from the sky, and We produce thereby fruits of varying colors?


  • The sentence assumes that we see Allah send down rain from the sky, however we don't see him doing it
  • In this age, we know thanks to science that rain is a part of the water cycle which is a completely natural process and doesn't require supernatural beings

And then this is the supposed miracle:

And in the mountains are tracts, white and red of varying shades and [some] extremely black.


Quran 35:27 (translation Sahih International)

Apologists added a picture of a colorful mountain from Peru as if you have to go to South America to see a colorful mountain. However classical Islamic scholar Ibn Kathir, who lived in the middle east and never visited South America commented on the verse:

(and among the mountains are Judad, white and red, of varying colors) means, He created the mountains like this, with different colors, as we also see that there are indeed white and red mountains, and in some of them there are streaks which are also of varying colors. Ibn `Abbas said Al-Judad means pathways. This was also the view of Abu Malik, Al-Hasan, Qatadah and As-Suddi. And there are some mountains which are very black. `Ikrimah said, "Al-Gharabib means mountains which are high and black. This was also the view of Abu Malik, `Ata' Al-Khurasani and Qatadah. Ibn Jarir said, "When the Arabs describe something as being very black, they say Ghirbib.


Tafsir Ibn Kathir on 35:27

As we can see Ibn Abbas didn't even agree that it means "streaks".

Muhammad's mountain

The mountain Jabal an-Nour, which includes cave Hira, where Muhammad supposedly received his revelations also has colors of white, black and red (brown).


See also