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A barrier between two seas and the cosmic oceans

Order

1. Intro
2. What they Quran says - short paragraph on the science
3. Apologist claim? here or above the science?
4. Why is it incorrect - the science and refutation of apologist claim.
5. refutation of apologist claim
6. Why is it incorrect
7. The historical context
8. Antiquity interpretation intro
9. Moses and Khidr story
10. Tommaso article linking it
11. Other Islamic literature

Main page image to upload (https://drive.google.com/file/d/1tSZVB0TTdpOtG0Y5sUbrCrsBiiHFZ-Io/view?usp=sharing). Rights brought from iStock to use on website.https://www.istockphoto.com/photo/estuary-difference-between-fresh-water-and-sea-water-from-above-gm1462114312-495765419?phrase=estuary+freshwater+saltwater&searchscope=image%2Cfilm

Introduction

The Quran refers to two different bodies of water, emphasising there is one sweet and one fresh, and that they meet but there is a barrier between them. Both early and medieval Muslims, and modern Academic scholarship, have identified this with an ancient belief of there being a cosmic ocean of water surrounding the world.^[1] Other classical scholars have attributed it to the way fresh water bodies of water are separate to the salty seas and oceans in general, rather than two specific bodies of water not taking the verse literally.^[2][3]

Some modern Muslims have tried to reconcile the relevant verses with natural phenomena, including estuaries meeting the sea, and different seas having different salt levels. However critics do not believe the verses accurately describe this, and actually conflicts with the description as will be stated in the article. When a fresh water river flows into the sea or ocean, there is a transition region in between. This transition region is called an estuary where the fresh water remains temporarily separated from the salt water. However, this separation is not absolute, is not permanent, and the different salinity levels between the two bodies of water eventually homogenize. The Qur'an, by contrast, suggests that there is a separation between two seas, one salty and one fresh water, maintained by some sort of divine barrier placed between them.

The Qur'an

There is a consistent theme of 'the two seas' ("al-baḥrayn, ٱلْبَحْرَيْنِ"), with the exact same term being used 5 times in the Quran.

We are told that there are two seas ("al-baḥrayn, ٱلْبَحْرَيْنِ"), one freshwater (palatable and sweet), and one seawater (salt and bitter), and that there is a barrier that it is forbidden to be pass, implying that they will never be passed.

Q55:22 quoted below states that coral emerge from both seas. However, coral are found only in salt water oceans, and exposure to freshwater leads to coral bleaching^[4].

And again in Q35:12 we are told the two seas with one being freshwater (palatable and sweet), and one seawater (salt and bitter). But from both come fresh meat (presumably fish) and ornaments to wear come from both (presumably coral and pearl as mentioned above in verse Q 55:22).

Again, there is a barrier between the two seas.

Another reference to "the two seas" is found in the story of Moses and his servant, where he meets a man (Al-Khidr) who has special knowledge of events that have not yet happened from god, and tests Moses to carry out seemingly immoral tasks without asking him why:

The full story of Moses ad Al-Khidr can be found at the bottom of the page for context.

Apologists claims

Estuaries and salt water

Apologists claim that the Quran is referring to different bodies of water have different densities which causes them not to mix, creating a barrier between them, and even that the descriptions show advanced knowledge of science that could not have been known to a human. You can see the images referenced in this link which are repeated on many Islamic websites.

The first claim is around fresh water from rivers meeting seas/oceans of salt water, with the transition stage known as estuaries:

Note that in the above referenced claim in the book (Introductory Oceanography, Thurman), they have added the words “Zone of Separation” and “The partition" onto Figure 4 (saying “with slight enhancement”), which the book itself does not have - clearly to link the word 'partition' as translated into English by several authors in the Quran with the scientific book.

Issues with this interpretation

Problems with miracle claim

Critics point to issue's with inserting this is a scientific miracle, or even scientifically accurate:

1. Firstly as with all claims of scientific miracles in ancient scripture, nothing scientifically new was known/discovered from this verse as one would expect if it clearly described a new scientific fact - the method of 'discovering' falls into typical categories of selective literalism, de-historicization and pseudo-corelation etc. (see Scientific Miracles in the Quran), taking advantage of ambiguity in language to fit a modern reading rather than an honest one.
2. The idea of the density of salt water being more than freshwater, separating the two was already known at least by the time of Aristotle (382 BC to 322 BC); “The drinkable, sweet water, l of it drawn up: the salt water is heavy and remains behind.”^[5]
3. This description is so basic and lacking any actual science (i.e. God creates a barrier between two seas which stops them merging), it could easily apply to someone sailing nearby or over one of these and passing on the descriptions as they have done since ancient times,^[6] as the colours are often different (as seen in the image on this page), leading people to assume there was an actual barrier placed by God between the two waters.
4. This description also implies there is no mixing between them at all, and could just as easily be written by someone believing that someone believing there was no mixing at all between them.

A deeper analysis can be found on the now defunct and archived former Wikiislam website' page on scientific miracles Meeting of Fresh and Salt Water in the Quran.

Problems with general accuracy

We are told that there are specifically the two seas (al-baḥrayn).

• This uses the definite particle 'al' for 'the' for a specific two seas, not general.
• 'baḥr' for large body of water/sea.
• the dual suffix/ending in 'ayn' means there are two of them, as apposed to singular or plural (3 or more).

1. Yet this happens in many places (there are over 1,200 documented estuaries,^[7] i.e. more than two) across the world - nowhere does the language suggest this is the case, as to match this Qur'an verse it must be referring to a single specific but unnamed estuary. There are many far better ways to phrase this if it meant this phenomena.
2. There are many different types of estuaries (e.g. Salt wedge, Fjord-type, Slightly Stratified - you can read about them here and on CostalWiki for accessible science for the general reader), however despite what it may look like on the surface they all mix to varying degrees - which is not a logic inference of having a barrier between them that they cannot pass.
3. It does not use the word specifically for river (نھر "Nahar" - a word also used elsewhere in the Qur'an to describe a river) and sea, which would have been an accurate way to describe it. There is no need to describe something inaccurately, as they don't describe many other natural processes - e.g. formation of deserts and forest, and so could have just left it out completely and avoided confusion.
4. If the mixing zones isn't part of either 'sea' being mentioned but a 'barrier', then there are arguably 3 bodies of water in, and the language could reflect the mixing zone by stating that one of them is made of both sweet and salty water (brackish water^[8]). This also would separate it from the other specific seas being referred to as we will discuss in the next section.

Two actual seas

Secondly, it states the verses not specifically mentioning sweet and salty waters are referring to different seas with different kinds of waters:

Problems with miracle claim and general science

• Firstly, it is a leap of faith to separate the sweet and salty seas from the other two 'seas' mentioned in Quran 55:19-20 from the others, as they all use the same phrase to refer to a specific two seas it is implied the audience is already familiar with.
• Quran 35:12 states ornaments for us to wear are from both seas, salty and sweet linking the coral and pearl this to the sweet and salty seas as repeated in verse 55:22.
• Again, using the definite particle 'al' and barrier between them implies this is for two specific seas, while this phenomena occurs in many places, even the North Atlantic, South Atlantic the Pacific Oceans have different salt levels.^[9] And there are more examples of aquatic sills^[10], with some notable examples given here - which does not match a single specific case as the definite article used in the Quran suggests. For vertically mixed zones where salinity changes rapidly, a pycnocline zone, and more specifically, a halocline zone^[11], is always a mixture of fresh water and salt water - in fact it is a product of their mixing.
• For the second point about the difference between the Atlantic and Mediterranean oceans not mixing, this is not true, as Piers Chapman of Texas A&M University writes on Waterencyclopedia^[12]: 'Mixing in the ocean occurs on several scales.. The best-known example of this process, known as salt fingering, occurs where very salty water from the Mediterranean outflow mixes into the North Atlantic... Most mixing, however, takes place on larger scales in response to forcing by the wind'.

Historical context

Antiquity interpretation

There is another interpretation for this verse which critics argue is the only one to accurately fit this verse on a literal reading, which we will discuss below. This fits a prevalent antiquity (and pre-antiquity) view which was present across the region, and was also held in biblical cosmology and later Christian/Jewish exegesis at the time of Mohammad, that this refers to a somewhat magical cosmic ocean surrounding the Earth.

This likely originates from ancient Mesopotamian myths, such as the ancient Akkadian myth of the Abzu, the name for a fresh water underground sea that was given a religious quality in Sumerian and Akkadian mythology. Lakes, springs, rivers, wells, and other sources of fresh water were thought to draw their water from the Abzu underground sea, while the Ocean that surrounded the world was a saltwater sea. This underground sea is called Tehom in the Hebrew Bible. For example, Genesis 49:25 says, "blessings of the heavens above, and Tehom lying beneath".^[13] Wensinck explains,^[14] "Thus it appears that the idea of there being a sea of sweet water under our earth, the ancient Tehom, which is the source of springs and rivers, is common to the Western Semites". Similarly in Greek mythology, the world was surrounded by Oceanus, the world-ocean of classical antiquity. Oceanus was personified as the god Titan, whose consort was the aquatic sea goddess Tethys. It was also thought that rainfall was due a third ocean above the "Firmament of the Sky" (a vast reservoir above the firmament of the sky is also described in the Genesis creation narrative). Whether the two seas mentioned in the Qur'an referred to these mythological seas or a more general inviolable barrier between bodies of salt and fresh water, critics argue that the verse in question is scientifically wrong.

The antiquity view is well summarised in Tommaso Tesei's 2015 article 'Some Cosmological Notions from Late Antiquity in Q 18:60–65: The Quran in Light of Its Cultural Context', examining the Qur'ans verse on Moses meeting a servant at the meeting of the two seas, which he claims is influenced by a story of Alexander the Great (see Dhul-Qarnayn and the Alexander Romance), which also features in this Surah. The full article from Tommaso, which is recommended to read to understand the context, can be read in the link on JSTOR for free, which provides a full overview.

The Quran states that Moses is able to reach “the junction of the two seas” (majmaʿ al-baḥrayn), where he meets the Servant of God. It states that he is able to reach it after hearing from his young attendant about the fish that they were carrying with them escaping. This is twice referred to, in vv.61 and 63. In both cases the dynamic is described by exactly the same phrase, with v63 ending in ʿajaban, which is commonly translated as “wondrously” or “in a marvellous way,” and 'saraban', which has caused problems and disagreements among Muslim commentators:

The puzzled commentators have given rise to a number of conflicting interpretations by later Muslims starting from the mid-8th century exegesis, who often came up with miraculous stories to link the fish escaping with a tunnel (a summary is provided in the article). Tommaso states that such attempts to relate the path the fish takes in the sea to passage on land are direct consequences of the apparent discordance between the meaning of the word sarab, “subterranean passage,” and the place where it is said to be found: the sea. It seems the later commentators did not have the full story it arose from. With the story matching a common motif of the water of life surrounding the Earth that could give life to the dead:

This also explains why the fish then takes to the sea in a 'marvellous' way:

Similar to other religious near-East sources:

The Biblical and Judeo-Christian background literature

The story of Moses and his servant is one of four stories in Surah al-Kahf. Modern academic scholarship has identified antecedents of each story in the lore of late antiquity. This particular story is almost unanimously considered to derive from a legend about Alexander the Great and his search for the water of life. For details see the section on the four stories in Surah al-Kahf in the article Parallels Between the Qur'an and Late Antique Judeo-Christian Literature. The bible itself also contains a sea above the Earth:

This view has more evidence from Islamic sources.

Islamic Literature - The two seas in the story Moses and Al-Khidr

Quran 18:60 states he won't give up until he reaches the two seas, or has progressed for many 'ages', with the word implying this junction is extremely far from land (many translators such as Yusuf Khan, Shakir and Muhsin Khan translate it as years), taking longer than any journey on our actual oceans would take. For example Christopher Columbus's journeys to America in the 1,400's took around 4 weeks to 6 months depending on the wind and weather.^[15] This suggests the author thought it was very far away from the middle-east where Moses is said to have preached.

This story continues where Moses goes with a 'servant of God' at the junction of the two seas, who is unnamed in the Qur'an but called 'Al-Khidr' in the Hadith. This man has extremely accurate foreknowledge of both future events and human nature (predestination), so he carries out seemingly strange immoral tasks and tells Moses to be patient and not ask him about them; these are making a hole in a boat to sink it, killing a young child, and fixing a wall for free for a town that refused them hospitality.

However Moses can't help but ask, so after three events Al-Khidr parts ways with him and tells him why he committed the acts; he made a hole in the boat as it was about to be stolen by a king if they departed at that moment, the child was killed as he would become a disbeliever, hurting his devout parents - so God will replace him with a 'purer' one, and the as for fixing the wall, he built it because it is covering a hidden treasure and two orphan boys will find this later.

This verse is expanded upon in a sahih/authentic hadith: Sahih Bukhari 4:55:613

We can see that the servants knowledge of events to come is so great he is able to teach a prophet as important as Moses, and get annoyed with him and leave him for questioning him. This kind of knowledge is usually only reserved for God, which fits someone coming from a special sea as they are so supernatural. The verses talking about the two seas also usually appear after important creation events: Quran 55:22 is mentioned just after creating humans and jinn, Quran 35:12 following creation of humans from clay, and Quran 27:61 - a verse before mentions creating the heavens and the Earth; suggesting this is an important part of creation, which two specific but essentially random (as are never identified) seas are not.

Islamic Views - Hadith and Qur'an

In the two most authoritative hadith collections, we see in Sahih Bukhari that Muhammad is recorded as saying that when going into the seven heavens on a night journey (see Buraq), the rivers in paradise came to Earth via the Nile and Euphrates. This clearly backs up the idea identified by Tommaso that fresh water comes into Earth via a freshwater cosmic ocean:

And this idea is backed up in Sahih Muslim:

From this Quran verse we see the highest heaven has a sea:

As well as a hadith in Sunan Ibn Majah's collection, which although is rated 'Da'if/weak', show's early Muslim understanding of the verses as a sea in the sky, above the seventh heaven:

Verses talking about the two seas also usually appear after creation events: Quran 55:22 is mentioned just after creating humans and jinn, Quran 35:12 following creation of humans from clay, and Quran 27:61 - a verse before mentions creating the heavens and the Earth.

Islamic Commentaries

Al-Tabari also provided an interpretation on this meaning of this verse to mean a 'sea in the sky and earth that meet every year' (with other views in his tafsir on verse:)

Al-Qurtubi, a prominent Sunni Scholar also provides this view says:

This idea of a cosmic ocean also has strong connections to the myth of the Islamic whale (see The Islamic Whale) swimming in the ocean with Earth on it's back, a view held by most major traditional Islamic scholars on their Qur'an commentaries such as Al-Tabari, Ibn Kathir, Al-Razi, Al Qurtubi etc.

Karen C. Pinto, a scholar who wrote a book on medieval Islamic maps, focusing on a distinct tradition of maps known collectively as the Book of Roads and Kingdoms (Kitab al-Masalik wa al-Mamalik, or KMMS)^[16], shows this view, known as the encircling ocean (al-Baḥr al-Muḥīṭ) was also part of Islamic folklore and art:

An image of this can be seen in her 2017 article In God's Eyes: The Sacrality of the Seas in the Islamic Cartographic Vision on P56 and 57.

Delete

The sea and rivers aren't permanently there, they completely change over time. Even the estuaries didn't exist when the Earth was made, so God letting the two bodies going free and a permanent barrier is false. Partition forbidden to pass - uses term for never - however entre sealine changes over time with rivers broken down and destroyed - and current 'seas' 'barrier' breaks down over time

Salt vs seawater - is estuary water sweet and palatable or filled with dirt?

• BBC Science focus article on Atlantic and Pacific oceans mixing, and that previous videos showing non-mixing are incorrect https://www.sciencefocus.com/planet-earth/is-it-true-that-the-pacific-and-atlantic-oceans-dont-mix
• - such as this kind of sea https://ecobnb.com/blog/2018/11/denmark-two-seas/ - explore - two salty bodies of water?
• When did the Gibraltar sill get created? Not permanent
• Scientific claim - Quran says absolutely nothing about different densities, hence no-one ever thought it did until many years after the discovery - Scientist William Hayes denouncing miracle claim (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eziurUGGens&list=PLC0D4187BE2661850&index=2)

Similarly Ibn Kathir

later commentaries after the flat earth model was rejected by astronomers state this barrier refers to land

This is obviously incorrect as coral doesn't form in fresh water, let alone springs. And the rivers are especially not connected - so is not a barrier between two seas?

large lakes referred to as seas, there is not a barrier between them. There are many lakes, springs and lagoons all over the world, they are not one body of water as the quran claims.

(https://islamqa.info/en/answers/165094/tafseer-of-the-verse-he-has-let-loose-the-two-seas-the-salt-water-and-the-sweet-meeting-together-between-them-is-a-barrier-which-none-of-them-can-transgress-ar-rahmaan-5519-20)

External links

• https://archive.wikiislam.net/wiki/Meeting_of_Fresh_and_Salt_Water_in_the_Quran - Previous Wikiislam page on this 'miracle'
• Waters that Never mix - YouTube video

References