Hamza Andreas Tzortzis
http://www.hamzatzortzis.com

“Have We not made the earth a resting place? And the mountains as stakes/pegs (awtadan)?”[1]
Is this description accurate? In surveying various academic sources on the structure of mountains it become clear that the Qur’an is not inaccurate. For example, under the sub-chapter 13.2 “How do we know mountains have roots?” academic geologists Gary Smith and Aurora Pun write:
“Airy’s hypothesis predicts that the base of the crust is deepest beneath areas of highest elevation; in other words, mountains should have roots in the mantle…Seismic data demonstrate the presence of thick roots of crust projecting downward into the mantle beneath mountains as predicted by Airy’s model. “[2]
However, some commentators assert that the Prophet Muhammad (upon whom be peace) took this understanding of mountains from the Bible, because the Bible also mentions mountain roots. However there are some philosophical implications concerning this explanation. In summary, it creates far more problems than it solves.
The reason for this is that the Qur’an in many places corrects the Bible. For instance the Qur’an is accurate concerning the title of the leader of the Egyptians in the Old Middle Kingdom and the New Kingdom, and the Bible is wrong [3]. Therefore to even suggest that the Prophet (upon whom be peace) copied the Bible would imply that he knew what was wrong and took what was accurate. This would then raise a whole host of new questions, such as: how did he know what was wrong? What reference point did he have to know what was accurate?
[1] Qur’an 78: 6-7
[2] How Does the Earth Work? Physical Geology and the Process of Science. Second Edition. Pearson. 2010, pages 306 – 307.
[3] See http://www.islamic-awareness.org/Quran/Contrad/External/josephdetail.html