Geoscience

Mountains in the Sky

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Scientific Context
Mountains in the Sky

The Genesis of a Thunderstorm

For centuries, clouds were viewed as formless mists drifting passively at the whim of the wind. In 1803, British meteorologist Luke Howard demonstrated that clouds are ordered thermodynamic systems governed by distinct physical phases. The most volatile of these systems—the cumulonimbus—operates as a massive vertical heat engine. It begins at ground level when prevailing winds drive isolated cumulus clouds together into zones of convergence. As these buoyant air parcels merge, they focus their ascending thermal energy into a singular, concentrated updraft. Condensation releases latent heat into the surrounding parcel, boosting buoyancy and accelerating the rising column upward at speeds exceeding one hundred kilometers per hour, ultimately heaping the cloud into a mountainous vertical mass that spans the troposphere.

In 1949, meteorologists Horace Byers and Roscoe Braham revealed that a mature cumulonimbus is strictly stratified into distinct operational tiers. Near the base, the air is warm and composed purely of liquid water droplets. At the freezing summits, reaching altitudes above fifteen kilometers, the cloud consists entirely of glaciated ice crystals. Between these two boundaries lies a critical sub-zero core dominated by supercooled water—liquid moisture that remains unfrozen well below zero degrees Celsius due to the absence of freezing nuclei.

Within this intermediate zone, the storm’s physical outputs are generated simultaneously. In the 1930s, Tor Bergeron and Walter Findeisen showed that ice crystals rapidly grow by drawing moisture directly from surrounding supercooled droplets. Embryonic ice pellets suspended in the updraft collect freezing water layer by layer, building into dense hailstones until their mass overcomes the upward wind and they plunge toward the earth. Simultaneously, high-speed collisions between falling graupel and rising ice crystals strip away electrons—a non-inductive charge transfer demonstrated by physicist S.E. Reynolds in 1957. This separation establishes a massive dipole electric field that discharges as lightning. Rain from the melted base, hail from the frozen core, and lightning from colliding ice crystals are not isolated meteorological events; they are the synchronized outputs of a single, vertically stacked convective machine.

Islamic Context
أَلَمْ تَرَ أَنَّ اللَّهَ يُزْجِي سَحَابًا ثُمَّ يُؤَلِّفُ بَيْنَهُ ثُمَّ يَجْعَلُهُ رُكَامًا فَتَرَى الْوَدْقَ يَخْرُجُ مِنْ خِلَالِهِ وَيُنَزِّلُ مِنَ السَّمَاءِ مِن جِبَالٍ فِيهَا مِن بَرَدٍ فَيُصِيبُ بِهِ مَن يَشَاءُ وَيَصْرِفُهُ عَن مَّن يَشَاءُ يَكَادُ سَنَا بَرْقِهِ يَذْهَبُ بِالْأَبْصَارِ
Do you not see that Allah drives clouds, then joins them together, then makes them into a mass, and you see the rain emerge from within it? And He sends down from the sky, from mountains within it, hail, and strikes with it whom He wills and averts it from whom He wills. The flash of its lightning almost takes away the eyesight.
— Quran 24:43

This passage depicts cloud development not as an instantaneous event, but as an ordered, successive progression in the natural world. In classical Arabic grammar, the actions are framed with active imperfect verbs—yuzjī (drives), yuʾallifu (joins), yajʿalu (makes), yakhruju (emerges), yunazzilu (sends down)—denoting continuous, ongoing activity in the sky rather than completed past events.

The sequence begins with yuzjī (to drive gently). Early authority ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿAbbās (d. 687) explained this as the initial gentle propulsion that sets scattered, isolated clouds in motion before they are drawn together (yuʾallifu baynahu). He noted that the resulting state, rukām, designates material heaped upward layer upon layer, forming a dense, vertically accumulated mass rather than a disperse sheet spread across the sky.

The transition between each stage is governed by deliberate syntax. In Mafātīḥ al-Ghayb, Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 1210) observed that the text links each phase using the conjunction thumma (then) rather than wa (and). In classical rhetoric, wa indicates simple simultaneous listing, whereas thumma establishes an ordered temporal sequence: the clouds must first be driven into proximity, then joined, and then built into a stacked body before precipitation can occur.

From this single accumulated mass, the passage details three distinct, simultaneous outputs. Rain (al-wadq) emerges from openings within the lower cloud body (min khilālihi), while hail descends from upper heights described as jibāl (mountains). Early authority Mujāhid ibn Jabr (d. 722) explained that jibāl refers directly to the towering, mountainous peaks and massive vertical relief assumed by the cloud itself. Finally, the text links these frozen heights to lightning, whose blinding glare (sanā barqihi) overwhelms the vision of the onlooker. Classical exegesis reads the passage as an integrated whole: a single mountainous cloud yielding rain from its body, hail from its heights, and lightning from its core.

Reference Timeline
600 CE
1000 CE
1500 CE
2000 CE
Quran verse 24:43 626 CE–632 CE Depicts an ordered sequence where clouds are driven, joined, and vertically heaped into mountainous masses that produce rain, hail, and lightning
687 CE ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿAbbās analyzes the sequence of cloud formation, noting the initial gentle propulsion (yuzjī) and defining rukām as dense, vertically stacked accumulation ʿAbdullāh ibn ʿAbbās (d. 687)
722 CE Mujāhid ibn Jabr explains that 'mountains' (jibāl) in the sky refers to the towering vertical peaks and mountainous relief formed by mature cloud masses Mujāhid ibn Jabr (d. 722), Tafsīr Mujāhid
1210 CE Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī analyzes the conjunction thumma (then), demonstrating that cloud convergence, vertical piling, and precipitation operate in an ordered temporal sequence rather than simultaneously Fakhr al-Dīn al-Rāzī (d. 1210), Mafātīḥ al-Ghayb
1803 CE Luke Howard establishes the first systematic classification of cloud architecture, demonstrating that clouds are structured thermodynamic systems governed by physical phases Luke Howard, On the Modifications of Clouds (1803)
1935 CE Tor Bergeron formalizes the microphysics of mixed-phase clouds, demonstrating that ice crystals grow by drawing moisture directly from supercooled water droplets Tor Bergeron, On the Physics of Cloud and Precipitation (1935)
1949 CE Horace Byers and Roscoe Braham publish findings from the U.S. Thunderstorm Project, mapping the internal convective cells and thermal stratification of cumulonimbus clouds Horace Byers & Roscoe Braham, The Thunderstorm (1949)
1957 CE S.E. Reynolds experimentally demonstrates non-inductive charge transfer through collisions between falling graupel and rising ice crystals, explaining thunderstorm electrification S.E. Reynolds et al., Journal of Meteorology (1957)

The Connection

The Quranic text outlines a sequence where driving clouds, joining them together, and heaping them vertically yields rain from the interior, hail from mountainous heights, and lightning from its core. Modern atmospheric science mirrors this exact architecture. A cumulonimbus operates as a single thermodynamic engine, utilizing convective updrafts and thermal stratification to coordinate lower liquid precipitation, upper accreting hail, and electrical charge separation simultaneously from one unified column.

Related Connections