The Mountains as Pegs

The third — and all of these are to be opened up, and may be studied in great depth in their respective sciences; here they are only hurried through — is in the next verse, verse 31:

Here He speaks of the mountains and of the purpose of mountains. The reason we have mountains pegged in various places is that we have continents. Now, with the various movements, we might have far more earthquakes. The mountains are what creates stability, so that there is not so much movement, for otherwise we should be shattered. That is one thing.

The other is that they are there to keep matters so, because the earth is breathing, and in its core it has this molten lava that is ready to spew forth. Were it not for this, we should constantly have more earthquakes, far more flows of lava and far more trouble in the world. We still have that at times, for the world does as it will in that sense. But the mountains are what creates the balance in it. And the way the mountains are made is of course by their contracting and coming together, and then the upheavals and the rest; which is a whole discussion that may be looked at.

The fourth, then, is Allah (swt) speaking of the mountains again: wa jaʿalnā fīhā fijājan subulan laʿallahum yahtadūn. There are mountain ranges; and yet there is always a way Allah (swt) provides by which to get through them and traverse them, through their ravines and their passes and their valleys. They are not one great block for mile upon mile and useless. There are many places where one may get through, and where men have tunnelled through them or made ways through them. Allah has made that possible.