Abstract
The essay poses a question about the cultural representation of mountains and minerals in the Islamic tradition. Drawing on the most basic resource of the Qur'anic text, it observes that stones, mountains and other elements of subterranean world acquire a positive value in the Islamic cosmological outlook, being a part of the well-ordered and beneficial natural phenomena and even playing a role of ethical companionship to man.
In parallel, mountaintops and the stone structure of the Kaʻba are shown to play a central ordering role in the structure of the religious time-space. The positive and significant representation of stones and mountains, which stands partly in contrast to the European culture, is tentatively ascribed both to the specific natural conditions of the Arabian milieu of Muhammad's prophethood and the religious legacies of the pre-Islamic era.