Reply to Celal Şengör: “Mountains are not the cause of earthquakes but their result”

As you know, the geologist (earth scientist) Celal Şengör put forward a claim on a TV programme about there being a contradiction in the Quran. ( see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uYdlsk20p8&feature=y…) In the video transcript, saying ‘Sir, it says (the Quran), We created the mountains so that they would protect the lands from earthquakes. Quite the opposite, quite the opposite! Where there are mountains tremendous earthquakes occur, they wreck the lands. Where there is no mountain, on completely flat places earthquakes do not occur, it is a Craton.’, he said that there is a scientific error in the Quran and that a single contradiction will strip that text of being Divine.

Let us also write the verse that the esteemed Şengör presents as erroneous, so that readers can draw a conclusion as to which idea is correct.

(Surah Al-Anbiya, 31) Süleymaniye Foundation Translation

ar: وَجَعَلْنَا فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ رَوَٰسِىَ أَن تَمِيدَ بِهِمْ وَجَعَلْنَا فِيهَا فِجَاجًا سُبُلًا لَّعَلَّهُمْ يَهْتَدُونَ We formed mountains fixed (firmly seated) within the earth so that it would not shake them much. We also formed deep valleys, roads so that they may reach the place they aim for.

Süleymaniye Vakfı

So is there, as he tries to steer us, a scientific contradiction in the verse? Or is Celal Şengör, using his scientific identity/business card, performing an acrobatics of words and telling the information he gives and the verse as though they were opposites of each other?

If you listen sincerely and carefully, you will easily notice that he resorts to a very simple deception/sophistry by taking advantage of the listeners’ lack of attention and knowledge.

Because the verse in question does not say “earthquakes do not occur where there are mountains”, it says “mountains reduce the shaking of the earthquake”. So can you prevent or reduce something that does not exist? of course not! In fact, quite the contrary, an earthquake must occur so that we can form the sentence “it prevents the earthquake”. That is, earthquakes occur where there are mountains, indeed nothing can be more natural than earthquakes occurring where there are mountains.

Let us explain this with a few very simple examples; in cars, engineers put a bumper at the front and back as a protective effect against impacts, against possible accidents.a bumper is made. Generally the impacts resulting from an accident occur where the bumpers are. If we use teacher Celal’s logic, would it be logical for us to say “wherever there is a bumper there is damage, If these bumpers did not exist there would be no damage either”?

Or let us give yet another example;

Where are the most police found, they are found in the region with the most criminals, are they not? so does this mean that the police encourage criminals to crime? no, quite the contrary, the police are there to prevent crime. That is, is not someone’s sentence “the police prevent crimes” a perfectly correct sentence?

In fact, even without moving on to the word analysis in the verse, we easily understand the intellectual destruction or sophistry being carried out.

The common emphasis -concerning our subject- of Surah Al-Anbiya verse 31 and the other verses similar in meaning is “that fixed mountains were placed on the earth so that it would not shake people with the movement of the globe.”

While claiming to have found a contradiction and information contrary to science in the Quran, Celal Şengör in fact causes us to witness a miracle. While in the 7th century there was no possibility of knowing that mountains reduce earthquakes, it is very interesting that this information is given by the Quran.

Yet previously mountains were thought to be only elevations remaining on the surface of the earth. However, scientists noticed that mountains are not only surface elevations, that with the parts called the mountain root they sometimes extend below the ground as much as 10-15 times their own height. With these properties, mountains have a role similar to a nail or a stake binding a tent tightly to the ground. For example, Mount Everest, whose summit is about 9 km above the surface of the earth, has a root of more than 125 km. (1)

Prof. Siaveda, one of the world-famous undersea geologists, while speaking of mountains being driven into the earth in the form of roots, made a comment as follows:

The basic difference between the mountains on the continents and the mountains in the oceans is in their material… But in both of them there are roots supporting the mountains. In mountains on the continents, light and low-density matter extends into the ground as a root. In mountains in the oceans too, there is light matter supporting the mountain like a root… The function of the roots is to support the mountains according to the law of Archimedes. (2)

In addition, in the book named Earth (Dünya) by Frank Press, former President of the American Academy of Sciences, taught as a textbook at many universities around the world, it is stated that mountains are stake-shaped and deeply embedded in the earth. (3)

In other Quran verses, this function of the mountains is pointed to with the simile of a “stake”, as follows:

So Celal Şengör, by confusing cause and result and by telling it as if the cause of the earthquake were the mountains, is committing sophistry, and by distorting the verse he resorts to a denial.