The darkness of the Sea and the movement of the Waves

[محمد ارسلان]

 

[محمد ارسلان]

The darkness of the Sea and the movement of the Waves​

Verses concerning this miracle​

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“Or (the state of a disbeliever) is like the darkness in a vast deep sea, overwhelmed with waves topped by waves, topped by dark clouds, (layers of) darkness upon darkness: if a man stretches out his hand, he can hardly see it! And he for whom Allah has not appointed light, for him there is no light.” (Soorah Al-Noor, 24:40)

Linguistic explanation
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The phrase Bahr Lujiyy (translated here as “a vast deep sea”) refers to a sea the bottom of which cannot be fathomed, and the edges of which cannot be seen.

Explanations of the Mufassireen (exegetes)
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Imam Qurtubi said in his commentary on this Verse:
What is meant by these “darknesses” is the darkness of the clouds, the darkness of the waves, the darkness of the night and the darkness of the sea, because the one who finds himself in all these darknesses cannot see anything.

Historical introduction
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In the past, man believed in many myths about the seas and oceans, because at that time there was no scientific knowledge about conditions in the depths of the sea or about the ocean currents.
This is what encouraged the myths about the motionless oceans that could not be crossed by ships. The ancient Romans believed in the existence of a “sucking fish” that had magical powers and could stop the movement of ships. Despite the fact that the people in ancient times knew that the wind has an effect on the waves and currents close to the surface of the sea, it was difficult to know anything about the movements in the depths of the oceans.
The history of science shows that studies of the ocean and its depths did not begin until the early eighteenth century, when equipment, that was suited to such precise studies was invented. Among this equipment which is used to measure the depth to which light can penetrate the water of the ocean, is the Secchi disk. This is a white disk that is lowered into the water to record the depth at which the disk can no longer be seen.
At the end of the nineteenth century, photographic means began to be used, which were further developed in the 1930s when electrolytic cells were used.
The phenomenon of internal waves was explained by Dr. V.W. Ekman at the beginning of the twentieth century.

Scientific facts
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Scientists have discovered that the seas and oceans are covered by thick cumulus clouds that block a great proportion of sunlight.
The water of the sea absorbs the colors of the spectrum gradually; when the deeper these colors go, they create different levels of darkness in the sea. It becomes very dark after a depth of 1,000 meters where, if a man were to hold out his hand he would not be able to see it.
Modern oceanography has discovered the presence of strong waves in the depths of the sea.
Scientists have been able to see fish in the deep sea at depths between 600 and 2,700 meters that use a light-producing fleshy growth to see in the darkness and pursue their prey.

Scientific explanation
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In the second half of the twentieth century, modern oceanography discovered astonishing secrets in the depths of the seas and oceans. Here we will discuss two of these phenomena: the layers of darkness of the deep sea and the movement of internal waves.

Layers of darkness of the deep sea
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Most of the seas and oceans are covered with thick cumulus clouds that block a great proportion of sunlight, as is shown by most satellite pictures. These clouds reflect back a lot of the sun’s rays and keep out a lot of its light. Of the light that remains, the water reflects back a great deal of it, and absorbs the rest, so that the light decreases the deeper you go in the water.
In his book Marine Optics, Gerloff says that the level of light in the water of the open ocean is reduced at a depth of 35 meters to 10 percent of its level at the surface, and to 1 percent at a depth of 85 meters, and to 0.1 percent at a depth of 135 meters, and to 0.01 percent at a depth of 190 meters. After a depth of 1,000 meters the darkness grows so deep that there is virtually no visibility and if a man stretches out his hand, he would not be able to see it.
These astonishing scientific facts are mentioned in the Holy Qur’an which came down to Arabs in the deserts who did not know how to swim or sail in the seas and oceans. In the fortieth Verse of Soorah Al-Noor, Allah, Most High, says:
“Or (the state of a disbeliever) is like the darkness in a vast deep sea, overwhelmed with waves topped by waves, topped by dark clouds, (layers of) darkness upon darkness: if a man stretches out his hand, he can hardly see it! And he for whom Allah has not appointed light, for him there is no light.”
This Verse is in accordance with these facts, as they affirm that the deep sea is mostly covered by clouds. The words “like the darkness” indicates that there is no vision, and that is also supported by the words “in a vast deep sea (fi bahrin lujjiy)”. Lujjiy refers to that which is very dark and very deep. The fish at that depth have no eyes; rather they are equipped with bioluminescence, as mentioned in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. This is what is meant when Allah, the Almighty, says: “And he for whom Allah has not appointed light, for him there is no light.” These fish are able to find their way by means of light-producing fleshy growths that Allah, the Exalted, has created in their bodies.
The sea floor slopes and changes color gradually, fading to blue before disappearing altogether as the depth increases. As the light spectrum decreases as the depth increases, new types of darkness develop which prevent seeing some colors of the spectrum.
Hence, Allah, the Exalted, says “Zulumaat” (usually translated as “darkness” although it is a plural form, i.e., darknesses), and He did not say “Zulmah” (singular). He said: “(layers of) darkness upon darkness” (lit. darknesses one above another).
Dr. Williams Hay noted that fishermen are able to use the differences in the color of water to determine the depth with remarkable precision. As mentioned earlier, nowadays the simplest scientific tool that is used to measure the depth to which light penetrates the ocean waters is the Secchi disk, which is lowered in the water in order to record the depth at which it becomes impossible to see it, which is taken as a set point.

Movement of internal waves
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The image of layers of waves, one above another, on the surface of the sea, is breath-taking. This phenomenon is well-known to sailors and fishermen, but the strangest thing which man discovered only a hundred years ago is that there are internal waves in the depths of the oceans, which appear along the interface between two layers of water that differ from one another in terms of density, pressure, temperature, tide and wind effect, as mentioned in the Encyclopedia Britannica.
The differences in density in the open ocean are less than those in coastal areas where freshwater flows into the sea from rivers, streams and so on. The interface that separates the different densities is formed at the main point of temperature decline, so it separates the water of the warm surface layer from the water of the depths which is cold.
The thickness of the warm layer may vary from a few dozen to hundreds of meters.
The waves that are formed on this interface between the two layers of water that differ in density, salinity and temperature are similar to the waves on the surface, but they cannot be seen easily from the surface. The formation of these waves consumes a great deal of energy which could be used to push a ship forward.
We find that some ships which sail on these waters suddenly lose the ability to move forward when they enter what is known as stagnant water, which was discovered and studied by the Swedish scientist Dr. Ekman at the beginning of the twentieth century, as mentioned in the Encyclopedia Britannica.
Allah, Most High, says:
“Or (the state of a disbeliever) is like the darkness in a vast deep sea, overwhelmed with waves topped by waves, topped by dark clouds.” (Soorah Al-Noor, 24:40)
What is meant is that the waves are created in the vast deep sea, and this is what was confirmed by oceanographers when they said that the deep sea is different from the portion of the sea that is closer to the surface, and that the internal waves only form in the interface between the upper portion of the sea and the deep sea. These internal waves are of different types, the most important of which are those that form in straits and channels, for example in the Straits of Gibraltar, where the incoming flow of the strong surface current and the outgoing flow of the lower current cause internal waves to enter from the Atlantic Ocean to the Strait, as if they are broken waves, like the foamy waves that roll up onto the shore, which causes a great deal of internal turmoil.
Thus, there are clouds and there are surface waves and internal waves. When the rays of sunlight strike, the clouds absorb some of them and that is one kind of shade or darkness. When the rays strike the surface waves, the waves also reflect some of the light, and when the rays strike the internal waves more of the light is reflected back. This is another kind of shade or darkness. Then the density of the deep water absorbs what is left of the sun’s rays at a depth of 1,000 meters, and there is total darkness in this vast deep sea, what the Holy Qur’an calls “(layers of) darkness upon darkness”.

Scientific references
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The Encyclopedia Britannica states:
The molecules of water and salt, organic material and microscopic creatures all come together to cause a reduction in the intensity of the available solar rays as depth increases. In general, each species of fish of the order Osteichthyes exists in the deepest depths of the oceans, usually at a depth of more than 600 meters and even as deep as 2,700 meters. Between 2,000 and 9,000 feet there are more than one dozen species which include sea fish species that are characterized by a big mouth and light-producing fleshy growths on one or more parts of the body which are used to attract prey or potential mates. These and other strange features which are characteristic of deep sea fish show developmental adaptation to the intense pressure and cold, and especially the darkness, of their environment.
It also says:
There exist waves at the internal interfaces of the ocean, and these interfaces result from sudden changes in density as the depth increases; the waves which result from that are called internal waves.
The way in which these internal waves come about is due to tidal effects or the effect of winds and changes in pressure in some cases. A ship may also cause internal waves if the upper layer of water is not deep or is low in salinity.
Ekman came out with a theory, in a demonstration of his empirical talents, concerning what is known as dead or stagnant water, which causes ships to become immobile, shifting about in place because of a layer of freshwater that appears on top of the sea due to melting snow.

The miraculous aspect
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The miraculous aspect of this Qur’anic Verse is that it clearly states that there exist “darknesses” in the depths of the sea that are piled one on top of the other, and there are internal waves in the deep seas and oceans, and that these seas and oceans are usually covered by thick clouds which block a considerable amount of the sun’s rays. This is what was discovered by scientific studies at the end of the nineteenth century. In the twentieth century, modern science discovered a strange phenomenon that only occurs in the “vast deep sea”, which is that when light reaches a depth of five meters, the red color disappears. When it reaches 30 meters, a new type of darkness emerges in which orange light disappears. At a depth of 50 meters, yellow light begins to disappear. At a depth of 100 meters, green light disappears. At 200 meters, blue light disappears: “(layers of) darkness upon darkness”. At a depth of 500 meters, everything appears black, and the diver can only see what looks like moving shadows: “if a man stretches out his hand, he can hardly see it”. The Qur’anic description is very precise. It does not say that he cannot see it, rather it says that he “can hardly see it.” There is still some vision, but everything looks black.
But the Verse does not stop here, rather Allah, the Exalted, says: “Overwhelmed with waves topped by waves, topped by dark clouds”. Is there more than one type of wave? Science says so. In 1900. it was discovered that there are two types of waves in the sea: surface waves, which are the waves which we can see, and undersea waves, which usually move in the opposite direction to the surface waves. So now we have the full picture. There are internal waves, above which are surface waves, above which are the clouds and the atmosphere.
This discovery was made after hundreds of sea stations were set up and pictures were taken by satellite. The scientist who stated this was Professor Schroeder who was one of the greatest oceanographers in West Germany. He used to say, “When science progresses, religion must inevitably retreat”. But when he heard the translation of the meanings of the Qur’an he was stunned and said, “These cannot be the words of a human being.”

[from “Scientific Miracles in the Oceans & Animals” by “Yusuf Al-Hajj Ahmad”, published by Darussalam, 2010]​