Al-Hijr 19: We have stretched the earth wide, placed solid mountains and We have made grow things whose count and measure are determined.

Surah Al-Hijr, verse 19, we have come to it. The earth We spread out. That is, We spread out the world. And We placed firm mountains on it. And there We caused to grow things of fixed quantity and measure.

Things of fixed quantity and measure. That is, whatever we need in the world, We brought and placed there, He says. Fixed in quantity, fixed in measure. So outside the world there are many more things Allah Almighty has created.

If this world is the likeness and shadow of the hereafter, then of what is created in the world many more kinds will be offered to people in the realm of the hereafter, in the exalted paradise. For example, the wine of Kawthar, wine, they call it wine. I mean, many fruits; these fruits, we will say, taste exactly like what we ate in the world, we will say, of every kind. Now here too: 'We spread out the earth', He says, 'We placed firm mountains on it, and there of fixed quantity and measure.' What does that mean? It means there is a lot, but to the world only a fixed quantity and measure was brought, isn't that so? Isn't that the meaning? What does He say?

And there We caused to grow things of fixed quantity and measure. That is, whatever we need in the world, whatever this body outwardly needs, He brought and placed here.

The spreading out of the earth is its being turned into land on which the needs of the people coming into the world can be met. At the same time, through the seas between them, the world's air temperature has been balanced. Now, of the world, a quarter, two thirds is water and one third land. Is that right? Two thirds, isn't it? Water; one third land. Why? Two thirds water and one third land. Land heats up quickly and cools quickly. Seas heat up slowly and cool slowly. Now, in a car there is a thermostat. When the car runs, the water in the engine starts to heat up. When it starts heating, the thermostat opens.

It starts to cool the water with the air coming from outside. When the water cools too much, the thermostat closes again and prevents the engine from cooling too much. Again, when the water heats up and would harm the engine, the thermostat opens again at a certain degree Celsius. It lets the water cool. In this way, that thermostat automatically sets the water's balance so that it does not harm the engine. So the seas are the world's thermostat, surrounded by pieces of land. If the seas had not been created balanced, the world would turn into a desert climate. A desert climate: hot and scorching by day, dry; cold and freezing at night.

Is that right? Desert climate. What do the seas do? Going beyond the desert climate, they keep the land mild. In this case the seas, I mean, if the land is, say, 24 degrees by day, it is 20 degrees in the evening. If it is 30 degrees by day, it is 26 to 24 in the evening. In winter, if the daytime temperature is 8 degrees, 5 degrees, at night it is 2 degrees, 1 degree. That is, night is always lower. Why lower? Because the sunlight is a bit stronger, it heats the land a bit more. If the sea did not do this thermostat job, freezing cold would occur, so that life on earth would vanish. Do you see what a beautiful balance?

So where is chance in all this?

That is, in this world that has no life or soul, did these things by themselves gain reason and soul and set up this order? No one reflects. That is what the verse (?). Will you not think, it says. Will you not reflect, it says. How little you think, it says. How beautifully He says it. Yes.

At the same time, with the seas between them, He has ensured that the world's air temperature is balanced.

Firm mountains have been placed on the earth's surface.

The firmness of the mountains causes a swinging around its axis as the world turns.

When He says firm mountains here, in another verse He also says the mountains are the pegs of the earth. The peg we know is for tying an animal somewhere. So where will the mountains tie the world to? If it is a peg, where will it tie it? Look now, what a beautiful peg comes out here. Now we will explain it scientifically. Mountains are the sharpest points of the world. That is, its extreme points. However high we see them, they are the world's extreme points. And waters flow down from the mountains. If you pay attention. The bases of mountains are water reservoirs. The bases of mountains. At the same time, mountains are very heavy as masses.

As the world turns around its own axis at 1666 km per hour, will a centrifugal force not arise? Because of this centrifugal force, both the weight of the mountains and the water reservoirs beneath the mountains, arising from the swinging, from that centrifugal force, will keep the world turning steadily around its own axis. Tests on earth, atomic tests, (?), earthquakes, disasters, landslides will not affect the world in that case. Will not affect it. With what beautiful knowledge Allah Almighty created it. We give the best example of this with the helicopter too. A helicopter has two or three rotors.

They call these blades; long blades. There are blades 21 feet long. Depending on the helicopter, they are shorter or longer. And a helicopter weighs around 2 tons. 2 tons. There can be lighter ones too. Normally 2 to 2.5 tons; there are heavier ones. Now, if you lift this 2.5-ton, 3-ton helicopter by its rotors, they will break. They will not lift it. But the engine's revolutions turn at a certain rate, a rate it reduces through the gearbox and passes to the rotors. For example, say the engine turns at 2400 revolutions; reducing the revolutions by one in eleven, it passes them to the rotor. There it turns at 240 revolutions per minute.

If it turns faster, because the blades would follow each other's track, it falls into an air pocket. Spin the same blade fast in the same place; it cannot hold on. It must turn at a certain rate. At a certain rate the blade will both press on the air layer and, by changing its angle, move forward or backward. Now, at 240 revolutions, 240 revolutions per minute, through the swinging of this blade, at the tip of each blade a pulling force of 20 tons arises. How do you know, Hodja? I was a technician, I know. I was their teacher too. That is, I was a (?) teacher. Yes. At the tip of each one, a pulling force of 20 tons arises.

(?) with a pulling force of 60 tons, around its own axis, it whirls the 3-ton, 3.5- ton, 4-ton helicopter about like this. So too the world: what Allah Almighty calls firm mountains, the mountains He calls the world's pegs, with this weight and the water reservoirs beneath, because of the centrifugal force, to prevent the world from swinging off, and so that natural events on earth, the balancing, the events that will happen, do not shake the world, so they do not hinder the world, Allah Almighty with knowledge created these worlds. With knowledge. Everything rests on knowledge. So did this too happen, out of nowhere, did this lifeless thing called nature come alive, so to speak, turn into life, arrange itself, and then turn back into lifeless matter?

Yes.

So again I say: how little you think, says Allah, how little you reflect, He says. Firm mountains have been placed on the earth's surface. The firmness of the mountains causes a swinging around as the world turns. If these swings were unbalanced, the world would turn in an abnormal way, and perhaps, because it could not turn normally due to this abnormal turning, it would not allow living things to live on it. But the waters beneath the mountains keep the balance in the world's turning; at the same time deserts are sand grains that serve to keep the world's balance. How do they do it? When a weight arises anywhere on the world, the sands, by shifting toward the other side, try to restore that balance; that is why you see a sand dune here today, tomorrow that dune is somewhere else, a sand dune.

Yes.

But sands are mobile and moving. Mountains, however, are firm. The earth's weak points are the mountaintops. Therefore, as waters gush from the mountaintops and flow downward, streams, brooks and rivers form. They bring life to the places they pass. Again, on earth there are many trees, vegetables and fruits whose amount is known to Allah. How much of them there is, of what kinds: just as Allah knows this, people too come to know some of it through research. Their measures are also known to Allah. For example, a pomegranate seed or an apple, with their average weight, how many apples will come into the world, how many trees will be planted, how much will people benefit from them?

The knowledge of these is with Allah. With Us is a Book, preserved in the Lawh al-Mahfuz. Nothing is later added to it nor taken from it, He says. Yes.