Here I grew up thinking that cotton candy was a close substitute to clouds. The other day I read that my childish assumption was just that. And clouds are in fact heavy. Very heavy.
Read this: ❝Cloud weighs about as much as 100 elephants. If you’re a Democrat and you’re feeling partisan you could substitute 2500 donkeys. If you care more for dinosaurs than politics, you could also say the cloud weighs about as much as 33 apatosauruses.❞
After the initial disbelief was over, I reasoned that I love elephants and this could be an acceptable replacement for my (now debunked) cotton candy-cloud theory. Today, whilst reading and reflecting on sūrah al-Aʿrāf, I came across an āyah (rather, two words in an āyah) that made my jaw drop.
It was Allāh’s description of clouds.
[…heavy cloud…]al-Aʿrāf:57
Oh. Well, that makes sense, I thought. I did quick browse of the other places Allāh mentions cloud, and in sūrah al-Raʿd,
[…and He generates the heavy cloud] ar-Raʿd:12
=)
Subḥān al-Khāliq; Glory be to the Creator.
On your own time, go back to the above two āyāt, specially the one in al-Aʿrāf and read Allāh’s description of cloud and its movement and compare it to meteorologists’ theories.
This eureka moment made me understand something a tafsīr professor once mentioned; no matter how many times you’ve read a sūrah – even if you’ve mastered it (memorised it, learnt it’s many different exegeses…) you’ll still find new understanding the more you read it, and this is the understanding that Allāh places in the heart. It might be that after you’ve read an āyah or sūrah a hundred times, but on the hundred and first, something would make sense that it earlier did not. ʿIlm is nūr that Allāh casts in the hearts.
It also made me understand something another tafsīr professor, sheikh ʿAbdur-Raḥmān ash-Shehrī, had mentioned; it is vital that a mufassir (one who does tafsīr) equips him/herself with knowledge of physics, geography, biology, etc. though not necessary in an extensive amount. Because how else will you understand and be able to acknowledge and appreciate the perfection and the miraculous nature of the Qurʾān?
Originally posted here.
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