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→Islamic Commentaries: Added one more Shia Tafsir on the cosmic ocean - still ready for review (Y).
(→Estuaries and salt water: Have removed notes for other section and formatted - so is now ready for review again. Thank you.) |
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=== Introduction === | === Introduction === | ||
The Quran refers to two different bodies of water, | The Quran refers to two different bodies of water, emphasizing 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.<ref>Tesei, Tommaso. Some Cosmological Notions from Late Antiquity in Q 18:60–65: The Quran in Light of Its Cultural Context. Journal of the American Oriental Society, vol. 135, no. 1, American Oriental Society, 2015, pp. 19–32, [https://lockwoodonlinejournals.com/index.php/jaos/article/view/1669 https://doi.org/10.7817/jameroriesoci.135.1.19.] https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.7817/jameroriesoci.135.1.19</ref> 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.<ref>Tasfir Ibn Kathir on [https://quranx.com/Tafsir/Kathir/25.51 verses 25:51-54]</ref><ref>Tafsir Al-Jalalayn on [https://quranx.com/Tafsir/Jalal/25.53 verse 25:53]</ref> | ||
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. | 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. | ||
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It is also very difficult to imagine how one would know they had reached a junction of two seas, if this was referring to man-made sea boundaries as (such as the Persian and Roman seas) which many later commentaries guess at. However they would be more likely to know by reaching a magical barrier between the Earthly sea and cosmic ocean. | It is also very difficult to imagine how one would know they had reached a junction of two seas, if this was referring to man-made sea boundaries as (such as the Persian and Roman seas) which many later commentaries guess at. However they would be more likely to know by reaching a magical barrier between the Earthly sea and cosmic ocean. | ||
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. | 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. The prominent Shia scholar Al-Qummi (d. 919 C.E) also talks of the cosmic ocean the sun, moon and stars are in. | ||
{{Quote|[https://hubeali.com/books/English-Books/TafseerQummi/TafsirQummi-Vol3.pdf Tafsir Qummi Vol. 3] (pp. 32) Ali Ibne Ibrahim Qummi English Translation: Sayyid Athar Husain S.H. Rizvi|Hakam bin Mustanir narrates from Imam Sajjad (a) that His Eminence said that when Allah, blessed and High destined the needs of people, He created a sea between the heavens and the earth and fixed the orbits of the sun, moon, stars and planets in that sea. Then the Almighty Allah fixed all of them in a sky and appointed a kingdom of seventy thousand angels on that sky, who make it orbit.}} | |||
Separately, in the story of Gog and Magog, also linked to [[Dhul-Qarnayn and the Alexander Romance|Dhul-Qarnayn/Alexander the Great]] and this tale, some Shi'i traditions locate the barrier (of Gog and Magog) either behind the Mediterranean, between the two mountains found there, whose rear part is the encircling sea/ocean of the world ([https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/al-bahr-al-muhit-SIM_1064 al-Baḥr al-Muḥīṭ]).<ref>van Donzel, Emeri; Schmidt, Andrea. ''Gog and Magog in Early Eastern Christian and Islamic Sources: Sallam's Quest for Alexander's Wall.'' Leiden: Brill. pp. 81. <nowiki>ISBN 9789004174160</nowiki>, 2010. The full book can be read on the ''Internet Archive [https://archive.org/details/gogandmagoginearlyeasternchristianandislamicsources/page/n98/mode/1up linked here].''</ref> | Separately, in the story of Gog and Magog, also linked to [[Dhul-Qarnayn and the Alexander Romance|Dhul-Qarnayn/Alexander the Great]] and this tale, some Shi'i traditions locate the barrier (of Gog and Magog) either behind the Mediterranean, between the two mountains found there, whose rear part is the encircling sea/ocean of the world ([https://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/encyclopaedia-of-islam-2/al-bahr-al-muhit-SIM_1064 al-Baḥr al-Muḥīṭ]).<ref>van Donzel, Emeri; Schmidt, Andrea. ''Gog and Magog in Early Eastern Christian and Islamic Sources: Sallam's Quest for Alexander's Wall.'' Leiden: Brill. pp. 81. <nowiki>ISBN 9789004174160</nowiki>, 2010. The full book can be read on the ''Internet Archive [https://archive.org/details/gogandmagoginearlyeasternchristianandislamicsources/page/n98/mode/1up linked here].''</ref> | ||