Page 122 - Allah's Miracles in the Qur'an

Allah's Miracles in the Qur'an

The rain's function of "bringing a dead land back to life" is indi-
cated in several verses of the Qur'an:

… We send down from heaven pure water so that by it We can bring a
dead land to life and give drink to many of the animals and people We
created. (Qur'an, 25:48-49)
As well as bringing water, an essential requirement for living
things, to the earth, the rain also has a fertilising property. Drops of
rain which evaporate from the sea and reach the clouds contain cer-
tain substances which "revitalise" dead soil. These raindrops with
such "revitalising" properties are called "surface tension droplets."
These form from the top layer of the surface of the sea, called the micro-
layer by biologists; in this surface layer, less than one-tenth of a mil-
limetre thick, are found large quantities of organic waste formed from
the decomposition of microscopic algae and zooplanktons. Some of
these wastes collect and absorb elements such as phosphorus, magne-
sium and potassium, which are rarely found in sea water, as well as
heavy metals such as copper, zinc, cobalt and lead. Seeds and plants on

the surface of the Earth receive large quantities of the mineral salts and
elements they need to grow from these raindrops. The Qur'an refers to
this in these terms:
And We sent down blessed water from the sky and made gardens grow
by it and grain for harvesting. (Qur'an, 50:9)
These salts which descend with the rain are examples in miniature
of fertilisers traditionally used to enhance productivity (calcium, mag-
nesium, potassium etc.). Heavy metals of the kind found in aerosols
create elements which increase productivity during growth and pro-
duction of plants. In short, rain is an important fertiliser. With the fer-

tiliser provided by rain alone, within a hundred years, a soil of poor

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