The Sixth Matter
It is certain that what is attractive about Revelation is its miraculous inimitability (i’caz). Its miraculousness is born of the high level of rhetoric and eloquence (belâgat; Ar. balāgha). Rhetoric is founded on linguistic figures and qualities, and particularly on metaphor and figurative language. Any person who does not look through the telescope of metaphor and figures of speech will be unable to perceive its qualities. For Revelation, which conveys the spring waters of the sciences of the styles of Arabic in order to bring its truths close to the minds of men, takes into consideration their understanding and shows regard and respect for their feelings, which is called divine condescension.
At that time it was thus. Qur’anic commentators should give the Qur’an its due and not diminish its value, nor interpret it with anything that does not bear the ratifying stamp of eloquence. For it is clearer and more obvious than any truth that just as the Qur’an’s meanings are true, so are its manner of expression and ways of conveying meaning eloquent and elevated. So one who does not refer particulars to that source and mine is being niggardly in giving it its due. We shall point out one or two examples, since they attract attention.
First Example: And We placed the mountains as pegs, (Allah knows best what he intended). It is permissible that the figure of speech indicated here alludes to the following notion: the globe is like a submarine in the oceans of space and since, with its mountains planting masts or casting anchor, it merges with the air, its balance has been preserved. That is to say, the mountains resemble the ship’s anchor and masts.
Secondly: The earth’s inner revolutions and tremors are calmed through the mountains, for they are as though the earth’s pores. When an internal excitement occurs, the earth breathes through the mountains and its anger and upset are calmed. That is to say, the mountains are means of its calm and tranquillity.
Thirdly: The earth is cultivated by means of human beings. And human life is perpetuated by human beings preserving water, earth and air, the sources of life, so that they may be profited from. And what ensures these three conditions of life are the mountains. For the mountains serve both as reservoirs for the water, and as combs for the air as they attract the moisture, and since they are the means of precipitating the harmful gases mixed with the air so purifying it, they also water the earth. So too they preserve the earth from the formation of muddy swamps and the encroachment of the sea.
Fourthly: The relevance and similitude [of the verse] according to eloquence is this: Suppose a man ascends high up in the balloon of his imagination, and looking down on the mountain ranges imagines them to be the haircloth shelters of nomads thrown over the poles of the layers of earth, and the individual mountains to be tents erected on poles. Would this be opposed to nature and imagination?
If, in conversation with a nomad, you fancy and conceive of the face of the earth together with its mountain ranges and the mountains as tents pitched on it, you would not be far from the Arabs’ imagination and styles.
They would not condemn you if gazing from afar through the telescope of wisdom at the earth, man’s cradle, and the skies, its lofty roof, you imagine the sky stretching from the wide horizons to the heavens as a tent‑roof bound with the pegs of the mountains on the face of the earth. One or two more examples follow in the Reminder of the Eighth Matter.