By: Moulana Aneesur Rahman Nadvi
Unearthing an important geological feature of the Planet Earth in June 2014, the scientists have announced that they have discovered a massive underground ocean hidden in the depths of mantle hundreds of kilometers beneath the surface of Planet Earth, which is three times larger than our known ocean of the Planet Earth in volume. This is an important scientific discovery not only to the scientific community, but also to the Islamic thought and thinking, as it corroborates a number of mysterious universal realities stated in the sources of Islam. According to scientists, this new scientific discovery may be holding key secrets about how the Earth was formed in its fold and it may change our understanding of the formation of the earth altogether. From Islamic point of view, there are two aspects of this discovery: The first is the location of this underground ocean, and the second is the relation between this underground hidden ocean and the known ocean of our Planet Earth. We will discuss both of these aspects in the light of Qur’an and Hadith here.
Prophecy of Existence of Hidden Ocean in Hadiths
The first point in this regard is the whereabouts of this massive hidden ocean itself. The prophecy about its existence has been made clearly in several hadiths. Some of these hadiths are as follow:
Abdullah Bin Amr narrates that Prophet Mohammed PBUH said: “Indeed! There is fire beneath the ocean; and water beneath that fire.”1
Abdullah Bin Amr said: “There is fire beneath the ocean, then water and then fire.”2
In the above two hadiths, the first hadith is the Hadith Marfoo (a saying or deed which is attributed to the Prophet Mohammed PBUH), while the second hadith is Hadith Mawqoof (a saying or deed which is attributed to the companion of Prophet Mohammed PBUH). Both these hadiths are very clear in their meaning and connotation. The first hadith explains that there exists fire beneath the oceans of Planet Earth, and then there is one more ocean beneath that fire, while the second hadith describes one more fire beneath that second ocean (i.e., two oceans and two fires, one below the other).
These statements of hadith about the interior of Planet Earth belong to a period when human beings were completely unaware of what the oceans conceal beneath them? What is the depth of the oceans? What are the features and topography of ocean floor? Not only the people of period of Prophet Mohammed but the people of twentieth century too were completely unaware of these facts. All the discoveries and researches in this regard belong to the twentieth and twenty first centuries. So we will discuss them here briefly.
Fire below the Ocean
Nearly 70% of the Planet Earth is covered by oceans, and the remaining 30 percent constitute the continental area. Until recent years mankind has been as ignorant of the ocean, and particularly of the ocean floor, as of the primitive human beings. The knowledge of human beings about this hidden world is still considered limited and inadequate, because the deep oceans beyond several hundred meters have become dark, hence are considered beyond direct observation of the scientists. Thus, the human knowledge about the depths of the oceans today is indirect. Scientists theorized for the first time in the nineteenth century the depth of the ocean to be around 4 km which proved to be correct by the sonar technology in the twentieth century.
When man studied the seafloor for the first time in the twentieth century with the help of sonar technology (study of deep sea using sound waves), it was discovered that the ocean floor is formed with lava. Further studies proved that the seafloor is witnessing continuous volcanic activity, but due to heavy weight of water on the ocean floor, these volcanoes get suppressed at the seafloor itself and are not able to rise above sea level. According to an estimate, around 1 million submarine volcanoes are active on the ocean floor. Around 75 thousand of them rise up to one kilometer on the sea floor. Due to this continuous volcanic activity and piling up of lava on the ocean floor for millions of years a huge volcanic mountain chain has formed on the ocean basin which is around 80 thousand kilometers long passing through all the ocean basins.3
In this way, the entire ocean basin has been formed from molten lava and this activity is still going on there continuously. These researches of twentieth century amply explained and expounded the first statement of Hadith that “There is fire beneath our oceans.” Now we will try to understand the next statement of the Hadith.
Interior of the Planet Earth
Before we proceed towards the next statement of the above hadiths, we will explore the interior of the Planet Earth first which will help in understanding the next statement of the above hadiths. Geologists divide the interior of the Planet Earth into four spherical layers. Crust is the uppermost layer of the earth which is solid and rocky, and it is 50 km thick. Our continents and oceans are sitting on the top of this layer. The temperature in the crust has increased steadily with the increase in its depths. The deepest rock in the Crust has the temperature of 870 °C. What is lying beneath the Crust? Though geologists don’t know through direct means about it, nevertheless, they try to understand it through various means such as records of seismic waves. According to their findings, mantle lies beneath the crust from 50 to 2890 km deep. Mantle is considered solid and rocky. Its temperature has risen gradually from 870 °C to 4400 °C at its deepest part. Beneath the mantle lies the third layer called the Outer Core, which is about 2400 km thick. The temperature of the outer core ranges from 4400 °C in the outer regions to 6100 °C near the inner core. The Outer Core is liquid. The source of the lava pilling up on the ocean basin through eruption of volcanoes is this outer core itself. Inner Core is the last layer of the Planet Earth which is about 1300 km thick. The temperature at the deepest rock in the inner core has reached 6000 degree Celsius. Inner Core is considered solid rocky.
Ocean beneath Fire
The newly found underground ocean is located in the mantle. As it has been explained earlier that the mantle was considered a solid and rocky zone, nevertheless, the discovery of this massive ocean there has astonished the scientists. According to this new research, a vast reservoir of water has been found, enough to fill the Earth’s oceans three times. The water is locked up in a mineral called ringwoodite about 660km (400 miles) beneath the crust of the Earth. This study was put forward by American geophysicist Steve Jacobsen and his colleagues from Northwestern University in the US. They based their findings on a study of a vast underground region extending across most of the interior of the US. According to their findings, Ringwoodite acts like a sponge due to a crystal structure that makes it attract hydrogen and trap water. Hence, if just 1% of the weight of mantle rock located in the transition zone was water it would be equivalent to nearly three times the amount of water in our oceans. The study used data from the USArray, a network of seismometers across the US that measure the vibrations of earthquakes, combined with Jacobsen’s lab experiments on rocks. It produced evidence that melting and movement of rock in the transition zone – hundreds of kilometers down, between the upper and lower mantles – led to a process where water could become fused and trapped in the rock.4
In a nutshell, this research has proved that the mantle which was considered solid and rocky until now, contains huge amount of water in it. In this way, these researches further proved the statement of the above hadiths which says “There is fire beneath our ocean and ocean beneath that fire”.
Fire beneath the Second Ocean
The first hadith out of the two hadiths mentioned above which is the saying of Prophet Mohammed PBUH (Hadith Marfoo) states that “There is fire beneath our ocean and ocean below that fire”, whereas the second hadith which is the saying of companion of the Prophet Mohammed PBUH (Hadith Mawqoof) further states that there is one more fire (second fire) beneath that second ocean. Here we will try to shed light on this part of the statement too which is an interesting and an important fact in the light of modern geological studies.
As it has been explained earlier, the ocean floor is witnessing continuous and endless volcanic activity, and the lava from the earth’s interior is piling up on the ocean floor constantly. The source of this lava which is piling on the ocean floor is the outer core which is the third layer of the Planet Earth and lying below the mantle. This outer core is in fact an ocean of fire lying between 2890 km – 5150 km below the surface. Its temperature has increased from 4230 in its outermost region to 6100 in its deepest part. This vast region of the interior of Planet Earth consists of hot molten lava which is liquid. The same lava constantly gushes through the fissures and cracks in the mantle and crust, erupts in the form of volcanoes and piles up on the ocean floor and the continents. This ocean of fire (molten lava) has been regard as the second fire in the hadiths which is lying beneath the second ocean.
To sum up, this statement of the hadith that “There is fire beneath the ocean, then water and then fire” completely corroborates with the latest geological facts and findings. Hence, the comparative study between hadiths and modern geology put forward above may be summarized in the words that there exist volcanoes and layers of volcanic lava beneath our oceans which is about 4 kilometers deep. Below that, there exists a huge underground ocean in the mantle which is thrice as big as our known oceans, and underneath that ocean lays the outer core in the form of an ocean of hot liquid lava. All these latest facts and findings precisely and accurately interpret and explain the above statements of the hadiths. All these geological findings and discoveries belong to twentieth and twenty first century. These are such facts if anyone had expressed them only a few decades ago, then he would have been ridiculed let alone listening to him seriously. But these sciences of hadith have become brighter as that of sunshine in the light of modern scientific studies. Hence they are capable of lighting up whole of humanity, as these statements of the hadith convey the message to the whole of humanity that the hadith too is filled with scientific miracles as that of Holy Qur’an which corroborates the validity and authenticity of the hadiths as the divine source of knowledge.
Footnotes:
1 – Sunan Abu Dawood, hadith no. 2489; Mustadrak Hakim, hadith no. 8762.
2 – Musannaf Ibn Abi Shaiba, hadith no. 1394.
3 – Refer my book “Islamic Concept of Earthquakes” for further details on this topic.
4 – The Guardian, UK, 13 July 2014.