And the Earth He Extended

And the Earth He Extended

1988 10 October 4 And the Earth He Extended (352) A recent survey to stones in India shows with certainty that, 70 million years ago, India was situated south of the equator, whereas in our present geological age, even the southernmost tip of India is several degrees north of the equator. A similar study of rocks in South Africa proves that some 300 million years ago, the continent of Africa broke off from the Antarctic. These, and many other geological features all over the world support the modern theory of drifting continents, according to which all seven continents of the world were once parts of one massive land mass which later split up. Thus a world of several separate continents, divided by massive seas, came into being.

This theory was first put forward in 1915 by the German geologist, Alfred Wegener, who noticed that if all the continents could be placed in close proximity to each other, they would fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. This is most obvious in the correlation of the east cost of South America and the west coast of Africa.

Many other natural features are found to correspond very closely with each other on the opposite sides of wide oceans: similar mountains, rock strata dating back to the same geological period, animals, fish and plants of the same species, and so on. Botanists are almost unanimous in their view that, without assuming that the land masses of the world were joined together, there is no other way of explaining the existence of various plants found in different parts of the world. (See Geography of the Flowering Plants by Professor Ronald Good).

This theory has now been confirmed by fossil magnetism, and the study of rock faces has revealed the latitude and longitude at which their strata lay in ancient times i.e. in the very positions where the theory of drifting continents would expect them to have been.

There are a number of statements in the Quran which astonishingly anticipate modern scientific findings. The following verse clearly refers to the continental drift: “And the earth He extended after that: and then drew from it water and pastures” (79:31).