Welcome to the forum, katieMatt.
My understanding of that verse (Surah 71:19) is that it basically says that the earth has been spread out like a carpet. And it is using a figurative language. That doesn't mean that the earth itself is like a carpet. The verse simply says that the earth has been spread out or made into a "wide expanse" so that "you may go about therein, in spacious roads" (Surah 71:20), which is the next verse. This implies that you can travel across the surface of the earth forever in any direction you want, but you will never hit an edge or a wall to stop you from going further.
Secondly, based on what I just said above, the point of these verses is not exactly to indicate anything about the shape of the earth, as some Muslims argue, but merely to highlight the wisdom behind Allah's creations and His graciousness towards man. He laid out the earth in such a manner so that we can travel on it without falling off. It's kind of like saying, "Look! I made the earth for you, and I spread out it into spacious roads and paths for you so that it would be easy for you to walk and travel therein." That doesn't mean that the earth is a "carpet."
Thirdly, in the original Arabic, there is actually no use of the word "carpet" in that verse. It only happens to be the case that some of the English translations of it have the word "carpet" inserted into that verse, but it's not there in the Arabic, as you can see in the word-for-word translation at the link below:
http://corpus.quran.com/wordbyword.jsp?c...71:19:1%29
My understanding of that verse (Surah 71:19) is that it basically says that the earth has been spread out like a carpet. And it is using a figurative language. That doesn't mean that the earth itself is like a carpet. The verse simply says that the earth has been spread out or made into a "wide expanse" so that "you may go about therein, in spacious roads" (Surah 71:20), which is the next verse. This implies that you can travel across the surface of the earth forever in any direction you want, but you will never hit an edge or a wall to stop you from going further.
Secondly, based on what I just said above, the point of these verses is not exactly to indicate anything about the shape of the earth, as some Muslims argue, but merely to highlight the wisdom behind Allah's creations and His graciousness towards man. He laid out the earth in such a manner so that we can travel on it without falling off. It's kind of like saying, "Look! I made the earth for you, and I spread out it into spacious roads and paths for you so that it would be easy for you to walk and travel therein." That doesn't mean that the earth is a "carpet."
Thirdly, in the original Arabic, there is actually no use of the word "carpet" in that verse. It only happens to be the case that some of the English translations of it have the word "carpet" inserted into that verse, but it's not there in the Arabic, as you can see in the word-for-word translation at the link below:
http://corpus.quran.com/wordbyword.jsp?c...71:19:1%29
