Third point: Consider the following verse:

Yet after all this your hearts were hardened and became like rocks, or even harder: For there are rocks from which rivers gush, and some from which, when they are cleft, water issues; and some which fall down for awe of God. God is not unaware of what you do. (2:74)

While reciting this verse, Satan asked: “Why are certain natural conditions of rocks, which are known to everyone, mentioned as if they were among the most important issues?” In response, the following point issued from the enlightenment of the Qur’an: It is appropriate to do so, and there is a need for it, for only through the Qur’an’s miraculous conciseness and bounty of enlightenment has the matter been simplified and summarized.

Conciseness is a foundation of the Qur’an’s miraculousness, and bountiful enlightenment and beauty of explanation are parts of its guidance. These qualities require that universal truths and profound yet general principles be presented in simple terms to the broad masses that make up the majority of the Qur’an’s audience. As most people are not deep thinkers, it requires that only their tips and simple forms should be shown. Also all events, each a Divine operation whose extraordinary character is veiled by familiarity, should be pointed out briefly.

Thus, because of this subtle reality, this verse says:

O Children of Israel and children of Adam, why have your hearts become harder and more lifeless than rocks? Look at those very hard, lifeless, large rocks formed in vast underground strata. See how obedient and submissive they are to Divine commands, how permeable and open they are to His Lordship’s acts. This is so clear that the ease with which the Divine operations form trees can be seen with the same ease, order, and perfect wisdom underground. Water flows to them without resistance, just like blood circulating in veins, in well‑arranged water channels and veins through hard, deaf rocks.[1] Just as tree and plant branches spread easily, the roots’ delicate veins spread underground with the same ease and lack of resistance from rocks.

The Qur’an points to this and teaches a comprehensive truth through that verse, and so by allusion says to the hard‑hearted:

O Children of Israel and children of Adam. You are weak and impotent, and yet you can make your hearts so hard that they resist the Divine Being’s commands. Huge strata of hard rocks perform their subtle tasks perfectly in darkness and in total submission to His commands. They act as a source of water and other means of life for all living creatures in such a way, and as means for their division and distribution with such wisdom and justice, that they are as malleable as wax or even air in the hand of Power of the All‑Wise One of Majesty. Without resistance, they prostrate before His Power’s vastness, for almost the same well‑arranged occurrences and wise and gracious Divine operations that we see above ground take place underground.

Moreover, Divine wisdom and favor are manifested there in a more wonderful and more wondrous manner than they are above ground. Consider how soft the hardest and most unfeeling huge rocks are toward God’s commands in the creation and operation of the universe, and how unresisting and flexible they are to the pleasant waters, delicate roots, and silk‑like veins that act according to His command. Like a lover, the rock smashes its heart at the touch of those delicate, beautiful things and becomes soft soil in their path.

Also, through the sentence in the verse and there are some which fall down for awe of God, the Qur’an displays the tip of a tremendous truth: When Moses asked for a vision of God while standing at the foot of a mountain, the mountain crumbled at the Divine manifestation and its rocks were scattered. Like this, through Divine Majesty’s awesome manifestations as earthquakes and similar geological events, rocks fall from summits, which are usually like huge monoliths formed of thickened fluid, and are shattered. Some of these crumble and become fertile soil; others remain as rocks and are scattered down to the valleys and plains.

They serve many purposes for Earth’s inhabitants, as in their houses. In utter submission to Divine Power and Wisdom, and for certain hidden purposes and benefits, they stand ready to be used in accordance with the principles of Divine Wisdom. Not in vain, or because of accident or random chance, do they leave their positions at the summit and choose the lower places in humility and become the means of those significant benefits. Rather, they do so out of awe of God.

This shows that such events occur by an All‑Wise and All‑Powerful One’s wise operation, and that there is a wise order invisible to the superficial eye in such seemingly chaotic events. Such are the purposes and benefits attached to these rocks, and the perfect order and fine artistry in the “garments” adorned and embossed with the jewels of fruits and flowers with which the “body” of the mountains down which they roll are clothed.

Thus, you have seen the value of the verse’s three parts from the viewpoint of wisdom. See the Qur’an’s fine manner of expression and miraculous eloquence, how it shows through the tips of the comprehensive and significant truths mentioned above those three well‑known and observed events. Also, by reminding in the same three parts of three further events, each of which is a means of taking a lesson, it offers a fine guidance and restrains in a way that cannot be resisted.

For example, the verse’s second part says: and there are some from which, when they are cleft, water issues. By referring to the rock cleft with “complete eagerness” when Moses struck it with his staff, and the subsequent pouring forth of twelve streams from twelve sources, it means:

O Children of Israel. Large rocks become tears out of awe or joy, yet you are so unjust as to remain obstinate when confronted with all of Moses’ miracles. You do not weep. Are your eyes so dried and your hearts so hard?

In the third part, it says: and there are some which fall down for awe of God. By recalling the well‑known event of the mountain crumbling and the rocks rolling down out of awe at the manifestation of Divine Majesty, which took place at Mount Sinai when Moses supplicated for a vision of God, it gives the following lesson:

O People of Moses. You do not fear God, yet mountains crumble in awe of Him. You witness that He held Mount Sinai above you to receive your solemn promise of loyalty to Him, and that the mountain crumbled when Moses prayed for the Divine vision. And yet you are so bold that you do not tremble out of fear of God, and you keep your hearts so hard and unfeeling!

In the first part, it says: for there are rocks from which rivers gush. By recalling such rivers as the Nile, the Tigris, and the Euphrates, which gush out of mountains, it points out how wonderfully and miraculously rocks are susceptible and subjugated to the Divine commands of creation. To awakened, attentive hearts, this means:

The mountains cannot be the actual source of such mighty rivers, for even if they were formed completely of water, they could supply such a river for only a few months. Also rain, which penetrates only about a meter underground, cannot be sufficient income for that high expenditure. No ordinary reason, natural cause, or chance can explain these rivers’ sources and flow. The All‑Majestic Creator makes them flow forth in truly wonderful fashion from an unseen “treasury.”

One Tradition refers to this: “Every minute a drop falls from Paradise into each of those three rivers. That is why they flow abundantly.” Another Tradition states: “The source of these three rivers is in Paradise.”[2] As physical causes cannot produce their abundant flow, their sources must be in an unseen world, a hidden treasury of Mercy, so that the balance between incoming and outgoing water is maintained. By drawing attention to this meaning, the Qur’an gives the following instruction:

O Children of Israel and children of Adam, your hardness of heart and lack of feeling cause you to disobey the commandments of such a One of Majesty. Your heedlessness causes you to close your eyes to the light of knowledge of such an Everlasting Sun. He causes mighty rivers like the Nile to gush from the mouths of ordinary, solid rocks and turn Egypt into a paradise. For the universe’s heart and Earth’s mind, He produces miracles of His Power and witnesses to His Oneness as strong and abundant as the gushing forth and flow of those mighty rivers, and makes them flow to the hearts and minds of jinn and humanity. Further, while it shows the All‑Majestic Creator as the sunlight shows the sun, that He makes some hard, unfeeling rocks the objects of the miracles of His Power in such wonderful fashion,[3] how is it that you are blind to the light of His knowledge and do not see the truth?

See how eloquently the Qur’an expresses these truths. Note the guidance of that eloquence. I wonder what hardness of heart and lack of feeling cannot be melted by its “heat.” If you have understood my words, see one guiding gleam of the Qur’an’s miraculousness and thank God.

Glory be to You. We have no knowledge save what You have taught us. Truly, you are the All‑Knowing, the All‑Wise. O God, enable us to understand the mysteries of the Qur’an as You like and approve, and grant us success in the service of it. Amin, through Your Mercy, O Merciful of the Merciful. O God, bestow blessings and peace upon the one to whom the wise Qur’an was sent, and upon his Family and Companions.

[1] It is only fitting that the Qur’an should explain the three important tasks that the Majestic Creator entrusted to rock strata, the foundation of the magnificent, moving palace that we call Earth. The first task: Just as Earth acts, by the Lord’s Power, as a “mother” to plants and raises them, so by the Divine Power do the rocks act as a “nurse” to Earth and “raise” it. The second task: They serve the orderly circulation of water in Earth’s body, like the circulation of blood [in our bodies]. The third task: They act as a “treasurer” to the appearance and continuation, with well-ordered balance, of springs and rivers, sources and streams. Rocks “write” and scatter over Earth’s face “evidences” of Divine Unity that they cause to flow, with all their strength, in “mouthfuls” in the form of water, which serves life.

[2] Recorded by Muslim and Ibn Hanbal.

[3] One of the Nile’s main branches rises in the Mountains of the Moon, the Tigris’ main branch rises in a cave in Turkey, and one of the Euphrates’s main streams rises at the foothills of a mountain in Diyadin. It is scientifically established that mountains are rocks solidified from liquid matter. One of the Prophet’s glorifications—Glory be to the One Who spread out soil on solidified liquid—testifies that Earth’s original formation is as follows: Some liquid matter solidified at Divine command and became rock, and then rock became soil. In other words, the liquid matter was too soft to settle on, and the rock was too hard to benefit from. Therefore, the All-Wise and Compassionate One spread soil over the rock and made it a place of habitation for living beings.