There are many statements in the Quran that are in astonishing accordance with modern scientific theories. One such statement is this reference to continental drift:           

And the earth He extended after that; and then drew from it water and pastures. (Quran, 79:30-31)

These words correspond exactly with the modern theory of drifting continents. According to this theory, all seven continents of the world were once parts of one massive land mass. They then split up, and spread over the surface of the globe. Thus a world of several separate continents, divided by massive seas, came into being.

This theory was first put forward in 1915 by a German geologist named Alfred Wegener. The reason he gave was that if all the continents are placed close to one another, they all fit together like a jigsaw puzzle. This can be very clearly seen in the correlation between the east coast of South America and the west coast of Africa.

There are many other like-features of this nature to be found on both sides of wide oceans: similar mountains, strata of rock dating back to the same geological period, animals, fish and plants of like species, and so on. So this is not just a geological theory: botanists are also almost unanimously agreed, as Professor Ronald Good has pointed out in his book, Geography of the Flowering Plants, that there is no way of explaining the various plants found in different parts of the world, without assuming that the land masses of the world were once joined together.

Now that fossil magnetism also confirms this theory, it is taken as an established scientific fact. Study of rock faces has revealed the latitude and longitude at which their strata lay in ancient times. From this has emerged the fact that present land masses were not previously in the same positions as they are found today. Rather, they were in the very same positions that the theory of drifting continents would expect them to be. Survey of stones in India, for example, shows with certainty that 70 million years ago India was situated south of the equator. The rocks of South Africa prove that some 300 million years ago, the continent of Africa broke off from the Antarctic.

The Arabic word used in the verse quoted above is “dahw.” This word signifies the dispersal and scatterment of something that is joined together. A typical Arabic sentence, using this word, would be: ‘daha al-matru al-hisa ‘an wajhi-lardi,’ that is: ‘the rain has scattered stones all about the land.’ This is almost exactly the same meaning as that of the English word ‘drift,’ which has been used in modern times to describe this theory. This astonishing resemblance between the language of the Quran and that of modern science, shows without doubt that the Quran is word of a Being whose knowledge encompasses both past and present. □