Science in the Glorious Quran: Rain Clouds

“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 بِالْأَبْصَار” (النور:43).

“Have you not seen how God makes the clouds move gently, then joins them together, then makes them into a stack, and then you see the rain comes out of them? And He sends down hail from mountains (clouds) in the sky, and He strikes with it whomever He wills and turns it from whomever He wills. The vivid flash of its lightning nearly blinds the sight.” (Qur’an, 24:43).

Scientists have found that a cumulonimbus cloud goes through the following stages:

• Small pieces of cumulus clouds are pushed by the wind. The small clouds, then join together forming a larger cloud.
• Updrafts within the large clouds cause their body to grow vertically (stack) and stretch into cooler regions where drops of water and hail formulate.
• The hail acquires a positive charge as it collides with ice crystals and falls towards the bottom of the cloud and becomes negatively charged.
• The negative charge is then discharged as lightning.

Aren’t these stages precisely described in the above verse?

When the small clouds (A & B) join together, updrafts within the large cloud increases and the cloud stacks up (C).

After the cumulonimbus cloud is stacked up, rain comes out of it.

The lighter positively charged crystal particles are carried to the upper part of the cloud. The warmer hailstone acquires a negative charge from the cooler ice crystals and they fall towards the bottom of the cloud before their charges get discharged as lightning.