Darkness and Waves in the Seas

Or (the condition of the deniers) is like darkness in a deep sea. There covereth him a wave, above which is a wave, above which is a cloud. Layer upon layer of darkness. When he holdeth out his hand he scarce can see it. And he for whom Allah hath not appointed light, for him there is no light.

(Nur 40. Verse)

Darkness upon darkness

In this verse, the darkness found in the deep seas and oceans is mentioned. Clouds both reflect and transmit the sun's rays and prevent some of the light. This is the first layer of darkness. Water reflects some of the light that comes to earth and absorbs the rest, gradually decreasing with depth. The colors of the light spectrum, except for blue light, are absorbed one after the other in the first 200 meters. Due to the Decaying of colors layer by layer in succession, the ocean gradually darkens, that is, darkness occurs in layers of light.

Darkness is found in deep seas and oceans at depths of 200 meters or more. There is almost no light at this depth, and as in the verse, “If a person takes out his hand, he can hardly even see it”. Below a depth of 1000 meters, it is pitch dark. People cannot dive to a depth of more than 70 meters without the help of special equipment. For these reasons, scientists have only recently been able to obtain detailed information about the seas. It is certainly one of the miracles of the Qur'an that such information is given at a time when there is no equipment to allow man to dive into the depths of the oceans.

Waves upon waves

At first, a lot of people couldn't understand the phrase "wave-on-wave" in the verse, and they thought it was a literary expression. Because when we look at it, we only see waves above the sea and think that the bottom part is stagnant water.

Scientists have discovered over the last century that there are sub-surface waves that occur between layers of different density. These inland waves cover the deep waters of the seas and oceans because deep water has a higher density than the water above it. Internal waves behave like surface waves. They can be refracted just like surface waves. Internal waves are indistinguishable to the human eye, but can be detected by examining changes in temperature or salinity at a particular location.

These waves can be very large with heights up to 100 meters and hundreds of miles wide. In the ocean, such waves usually occur when tides cause water to move over submerged mountains on the ocean floor. Inland waves play an important role in mixing different layers of water in the oceans, which affect the climate. This type of mixing rate remains one of the areas of uncertainty in existing climate models. ¹http://news.mit.edu/2010/peacock-waves-0428

Allah knows best in everything.

• 1
  http://news.mit.edu/2010/peacock-waves-0428