Page 124 - Allah's Miracles in the Qur'an

Allah's Miracles in the Qur'an

… He sends down mountains from the sky with hail inside them, striking
with it anyone He wills and averting it from anyone He wills. The
brightness of His lightning almost blinds the sight. (Qur'an, 24:43)

The above verse refers to hail and lightning. When the formation
of hail and lightning are examined, it can be seen that an important me-
teorological truth is being indicated in this verse. About the formation
of lightning and hail, the book Meteorology Today says that a cloud be-
comes electrified as hail falls through a region in the cloud of superco-

oled droplets and ice crystals. Liquid droplets freeze and release latent
heat as they collide with a hailstone. This keeps the surface of the hails-
tone warmer than that of the surrounding ice crystals. An important
phenomenon occurs when the hailstone comes in contact with an ice
crystal: Electrons flow from the colder object toward the warmer one.
In this way, the hailstone becomes negatively charged. This effect also
occurs when supercooled droplets come in contact with a hailstone and
small pieces of positively charged ice break off. These particles, which
are lighter and positively charged, are carried to the upper part of the
cloud by currents of air. The hail has a negative charge now, and falls

towards the bottom of the cloud, thus the lower part of the cloud beco-
mes negatively charged. These negative charges are then discharged as
lightning. It may be concluded from this that hail is the main factor in
the formation of lightning. 61
In the following verse, however, attention is drawn to the link bet-
ween rain clouds and lightning, and to the order of formation, informa-
tion that parallels that discovered by science:

Or [their likeness is] that of a storm-cloud in the sky, full of darkness,
thunder and lightning. They put their fingers in their ears against the
thunderclaps, fearful of death… (Qur'an, 2:19)

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