An-Naba 78:6
Two short clauses, two metaphors.
أَلَمْ نَجْعَلِ ٱلْأَرْضَ مِهَـٰدًا
Did We not make the earth a cradle
An-Naba 78:6 · Translation: talal-itani
Image
The earth is "mihād" — a bed, a spread-out floor; so the human may lie down and rest. The mountains are "awtād" — tent pegs. A tent without its pegs is scattered by the wind. The verse opens with a rhetorical question: "Did We not make…?" — the answer stands in plain view.
Observation
Classical tafsīr reads the "peg" metaphor in the context of human settlement security: by its mass the mountain gives weight and stability to the region it occupies. Modern earth science studies the morphology of a mountain not only from the surface but also through the distribution of its mass within the crust — the visible portion of a mountain is not enough to describe the whole of its setting. The metaphor of the verse and the language of modern measurement do not say the same thing; but a common intuition about the mountain — "there is more here than meets the eye" — meets us, in different forms, through both windows.
Exegesis
Classical exegetes stress "mihād" as a "spread-out couch": al-Qurṭubī reads the earth being prepared to a flatness suited to the human body as a kindness. Al-Rāzī notes two sides of the "awtād" — "tent peg" likeness: both the visible stability (resistance above the ground) and the unseen fixity (the part of the peg driven into the earth). Both readings show that the verse has chosen a language that speaks to human experience.
Sources
Tafsīr: al-Qurṭubī · al-Jāmiʿ li-Aḥkām al-Qurʾān; al-Rāzī · Mafātīḥ al-Ghayb. Science: earth science — standard literature on mountain morphology and crustal structure.