Fussilat 41:10
The verse stacks four verbs: He set firm mountains (jaʿala rawāsiya), He blessed (bāraka), He decreed its sustenance (qaddara aqwātahā), in four days (fī arbaʿati ayyām).
وَجَعَلَ فِيهَا رَوَٰسِىَ مِن فَوْقِهَا وَبَـٰرَكَ فِيهَا وَقَدَّرَ فِيهَآ أَقْوَٰتَهَا فِىٓ أَرْبَعَةِ أَيَّامٍ سَوَآءً لِّلسَّآئِلِينَ
He placed stabilizers over it; and blessed it; and planned its provisions in four days, equally to the seekers
Fussilat 41:10 · Translation: talal-itani
Image
"Aqwāt" is the provision not of the human alone but of every living creature upon the earth. Not a scene, but the description of a system.
Observation
Classical tafsīr notes that "aqwāt" embraces the sustenance that falls to each living creature. In modern ecology the concept called carrying capacity measures a similar phenomenon: an ecosystem, with limited resources, can carry a given number of beings; overuse weakens the system while adequate renewal sustains it. The sense of "qaddara" as "decree by measure" expresses that the food balance of each species is set according to its habitat. The verse's "four days" in classical tafsīr classifies the phases of creation; these phases are a categorical account that does not require a one-to-one match with modern geological scales.
Exegesis
Al-Ṭabarī (Jāmiʿ al-Bayān) reads "qaddara fīhā aqwātahā" as the earth being prepared not merely as habitable but as sustaining. Ibn Kathīr draws attention to "li-s-sāʾilīn" (for those who ask): a system made ready for every creature that seeks provision. In the classical tafsīr tradition "four days" is understood not as a chronological calendar but as a categorical classification of the phases of creation.
Sources
Tafsīr: al-Ṭabarī · Jāmiʿ al-Bayān; Ibn Kathīr · Tafsīr al-Qurʾān al-ʿAẓīm. Science: ecology — standard literature on carrying capacity, habitat, and resource distribution.