وَأَلْقَىٰ فِى ٱلْأَرْضِ رَوَٰسِىَ أَن تَمِيدَ بِكُمْ وَأَنْهَٰرًا وَسُبُلًا لَّعَلَّكُمْ تَهْتَدُونَ · وَعَلَٰمَٰتٍ وَبِٱلنَّجْمِ هُمْ يَهْتَدُونَ
Wa alqā fi'l-arḍi rawāsiya an tamīda bikum wa anhāran wa subulan laʿallakum tahtadūn · Wa ʿalāmāt, wa bi'l-najmi hum yahtadūn
"And He cast firm mountains into the earth, lest it sway with you, and rivers and roads — that you might find your way. · And landmarks. And by the star they find their way."
رَوَٰسِى — root ر-س-و: to drop anchor, to be held fast. The root was analysed in detail at Qāf, 50/7, and the same expression was treated at Luqmān, 31/10; I rely on those and do not repeat them. In summary: the word is a plural active participle — "those that have dropped anchor". The mountain is named not by its name but by its state.
Māda–yamīdu: to sway, to go from side to side, to be tossed about. The lexicographers use the word especially of seasickness and of the rolling of a ship.
And the root's most familiar derivative has already been treated in this collection: māʾida (al-Māʾida) — the table that sways along with what is set upon it. The same three letters. This is the picture the root carries: a laden thing moving under its load.
It must be recorded that this is not fracture or collapse. Mayd is the swaying of a body that keeps its integrity.
The Qurʾān has two established roots for the shaking of the earth, and neither is used in this verse:
| Root | Where | What it names |
|---|---|---|
| ز-ل-ز-ل | al-Zilzāl 99/1, al-Baqara 2/214, al-Ḥajj 22/1 (al-Zilzāl, al-Ḥajj) | Zilzāl — the earth's quaking; the context is the Hour and trial |
| ر-ج-ف | al-Aʿrāf 7/78, 7/91, 7/155; al-Muzzammil 73/14 (al-Aʿrāf, al-Muzzammil) | Rajfa — the violent shock that seizes peoples |
| م-ي-د | al-Naḥl 16/15, Luqmān 31/10, al-Anbiyāʾ 21/31 | Mayd — swaying, rolling |
I give this not as a claim of miracle but as a record of word-choice: the Qurʾān has two words for "earthquake" at its disposal; in these three verses, where the mountains are named, a third word is chosen.
And from this a note about translation must be entered. Most English renderings give the clause as "lest it shake with you" or "lest it quake with you". But mayd is not a sudden jolt; it is a continuous oscillation. A ship at sea does not quake; it rolls. For this reason I render it "sway", and I record openly that I depart from the common rendering. What warrants the change is not a transmitted report but the root itself.
There is a bāʾ in the sentence, and translations commonly drop it. The letter is there, and it admits two explanations:
| Reading | Function of the bāʾ | Sense |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Muṣāḥaba (accompaniment) | The earth sways along with you — you are inside the motion |
| 2 | Taʿdiya (transitivity) | The earth sways you — you are the object of the motion |
Both explanations are transmitted. I prefer the first, and my ground is the wording: the picture the root carries is of a thing swaying with a load upon it (the māʾida, the ship). In that picture what is carried is inside the motion, not outside it. This preference is not binding.
There is no particle of negation in the verse. An tamīda — literally, "that it sway". The negative sense comes from an elided element, and the grammarians supply one here: karāhata an tamīda (because its swaying is not willed) or li-allā tamīda (so that it not sway). Both are transmitted, and neither changes the sense. The reason for recording it is this: the negation lies not in the wording of the verse but in the logic of the sentence.
The fourteenth verse is the sea from beginning to end: sakhkhara'l-baḥr — the sea was made subject; wa tara'l-fulka mawākhira fīh — you see the ships plowing through it.
The fifteenth verse follows immediately and speaks of dry land — but with two words drawn from seafaring:
| Word | Its sense at sea | Its use here |
|---|---|---|
| رَوَٰسِى (ر-س-و) | A ship's dropping anchor | The mountains |
| تَمِيدَ (م-ي-د) | A ship's rolling | The earth |
I record this as my own reading; its ground is the order of the two verses and the lexical sense of the two roots: immediately after the sea verse, dry land is described in the vocabulary of the sea. The contrast set up is this: at sea you roll, on land you do not. And both are enumerated as favours, and both close with a way — in the fourteenth verse li-tabtaghū min faḍlih, in the fifteenth laʿallakum tahtadūn.
One: no conclusion is drawn here about modern geology, about isostasy, about plate movement or about "the roots of mountains". That road is the forcing the method forbids.
Two: neither has the verse been falsified geologically, because it advances no geological proposition. I write this once and explicitly, so that in rejecting the apologetic I do not tacitly concede the counter-claim.
And one last datum internal to the Qurʾān: at al-Takwīr, 81/3, these same mountains are set walking (suyyirat). Fixity, then, is not a property the mountain owns but a state given to it. al-Naḥl enumerates this as a favour; al-Takwīr takes it back.
The difference that belongs here must be recorded, and the two verses do not stand in the same context:
| Luqmān 31/10 | al-Naḥl 16/15 | |
|---|---|---|
| What precedes the sentence | Khalaqa'l-samāwāti bi-ghayri ʿamadin tarawnahā — pillars you do not see | Sakhkhara'l-baḥr — the sea |
| What follows the sentence | Wa baththa fīhā min kulli dābba — living creatures | Wa anhāran wa subulā — rivers and roads |
| How the block ends | Fa-arūnī mādhā khalaqa'lladhīna min dūnih — a challenge | Laʿallakum tahtadūn — finding one's way |
I record this as my own reading; its ground is how the two blocks close: Luqmān ties the mountains to a challenge — "what have you created?" al-Naḥl ties the same mountains to a sentence about finding one's way. The same fact is thus enumerated in the one as evidence, in the other as a possibility opened.
It must be recorded: in the ninth verse the word sabīl occurred in the sense of a bearing (wa ʿala'llāhi qaṣdu'l-sabīl). Here the same root comes back in the physical sense: subulā — roads.
And in both places the closing is tied to the same root: la-hadākum in the ninth verse, laʿallakum tahtadūn in the fifteenth, hum yahtadūn in the sixteenth. The root ه-د-ي occurs three times in three verses.
This is a repetition verifiable within the sūra, and I record this as my own reading: the sūra tells of finding one's way on two planes at once — finding the road across the earth, and finding the straight way. The two planes are named with the same root, and no boundary is set between them.
عَلَٰمَٰت — root ع-ل-م: to know. ʿAlāma — the mark by which a thing is known. That the word comes from the root of knowing is worth recording: a mark is not knowledge itself; it is what leads to knowledge.
The lexicographers dwell on what the ʿalāmāt are here: the mountains, stones, hills and stars that give bearing on a journey. No definite list is given, and I do not give one either.
وَبِٱلنَّجْمِ هُمْ يَهْتَدُونَ — and the wording shifts. The sentence passes into the third person: hum yahtadūn — "they find their way".
Yet the preceding verse was in the second person: laʿallakum tahtadūn — "that you might find your way."
I record this as an observation about the word order: the verse names the finding of one's way by the star not as something commanded of the addressee but as something actually done. What is recorded is that a possibility is in use.
And the word is singular: bi'l-najm. The lexicographers take it as a generic noun — not "by the star" but "by the stars". But another reason for its coming in the singular is transmitted: a pointing to one particular star used in finding direction. Both explanations are transmitted; I do not impose a preference.
And a ring closes with the twelfth verse: there the stars were named as musakhkharātun bi-amrih, and no qualification belonging to man was entered. Here that qualification comes. This is a completion verifiable within the sūra.