PETROLEUM

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FORMATION OF PETROLEUM

4- He brings out the pasture 
5- Then turns it into a blackish floodwater. 
87-The Most High, 4-5 

Petroleum is primarily the outcome of a long process during which herbage like 
algae and fern in the interstices of rocks is exposed to the chemical effects of 
various bacteria. Today the origin of petroleum is believed to be organic 
material. Pastures created before man was created were destined to turn in time 
to petroleum within the framework of the ecological balance of the world. Oily 
organic residues decomposed beneath the floor of the seas for millions of years. 
The underlying oily substance eventually was transformed into petroleum. 

Petroleum presents the properties of ?floodwater.? Petroleum, more often than 
not, moves away from where it was originally formed. It does not have a settling 
property. Petroleum behaves like flood liquid, traveling long distances and 
collecting at spots where it comes across hard rocks without pores. Petroleum 
beds have been discovered in places where they were found as deposits, hindered 
from continuing their course. 

In brief, petroleum, as described in the verses, is 

1. made of organic matter, 
2. blackish and 
3. moves like floodwater.

PETROLEUM?S PLACE IN OUR LIFE
Until the mid-nineteenth century, crude petroleum was collected at places where 
it had leaked to the surface. Because it mixed with water where animals quenched 
their thirst and with wells drilled for drinking water, it was considered to be 
a nuisance. In the 1850s Ferris, and Kier who succeeded him, initiated studies 
that led to its use as fuel for lamps. Edwin L. Drake discovered petroleum beds 
at a depth of 21 meters, on August 27, 1859. As petroleum was more reliable than 
whale fishing and much cheaper to be consumed as lamp oil there was a ready 
market; and the petroleum era was thus ushered in. 

God had devised the composition of this substance in such a way that it serves 
different purposes in many aspects of our life. Some of the best known 
derivatives of petroleum are fuel oil, petrol, and paraffin oil. Derivatives 
less known find their usage in the manufacture of candles and wax, perfumes and 
cosmetics, even in substances used in cheese production wherein it prevents the 
cheese?s decomposition. Still other petrol oils are used in the following 
products: insecticides, acetone used in nail polish, artificial rubber, plastic 
material, chemicals used in the production of detergents and certain drugs 
containing petroleum derivatives. Last but not least, many textile products also 
contain petroleum in their composition. 

The story, whose beginnings go back to the decomposition of pasture, continues 
with the petroleum beds in the depths of the soil, with the production of 
detergents, t-shirts and nail polish. In verses 4 and 5 of the sura The Most 
High, there are allusions to petroleum. The three verses that precede it mention 
that God said that everything was given in due order and proportion. 

1- Glorify the name of your Lord, The Most High 
2- Who creates and proportions 
3- Who determines in due order and guides. 
87-The Most High, 1-3 

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