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In Quranic cosmology, this expression is possibly intended to designate a place that has a specific role in the passage of the heavenly waters to earth. In light of the above, one can imagine majmaʿ al-baḥrayn as the place where the heavenly and terrestrial oceans meet, and from where the sweet waters reach the earth, by way of an underground course alluded to by the expression saraban.. (pp. 29)}}

=== The Biblical and Judeo-Christian background literature ===

{{Quote|{{cite web| url=https://biblia.com/books/kjv1900/Ge1.6 | title=Genesis 1:10}}|(Genesis 1:6-10)  6 And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters. 7 And God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament: and it was so. 8 And God called the firmament Heaven. And the evening and the morning were the second day.

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

=== Islamic Views - Hadith and Qur'an ===

{{Quote|{{Bukhari|4|54|429}}|...Then I was shown Sidrat-ul-Muntaha (i.e. a tree in the seventh heaven) and I saw its Nabk fruits which resembled the clay jugs of Hajr (i.e. a town in Arabia), and its leaves were like the ears of elephants, and four rivers originated at its root, two of them were apparent and two were hidden. I asked Gabriel about those rivers and he said, 'The two hidden rivers are in Paradise, and the apparent ones are the Nile and the Euphrates.'...}}

And this idea is backed up in Sahih Muslim:

{{Quote|{{Muslim|40|6807}}|Abu Huraira reported Allah's Messenger (ﷺ) as saying: Saihan, Jaihan, Euphrates and Nile are all among the rivers of Paradise.}}

{{Quote|{{Quran|11|7}}|It is He who created the heavens and the earth in six days—and His Throne was [then] upon the waters—that He may test you [to see] which of you is best in conduct. Yet if you say, ‘You will indeed be raised up after death,’ the faithless will surely say, ‘This is nothing but plain magic.’}}Which were there before the universe was created (this hadith is rated Hasan/Good by Darussalam):

{{Quote|[https://www.altafsir.com/Tafasir.asp?tMadhNo&#61;0&tTafsirNo&#61;1&tSoraNo&#61;55&tAyahNo&#61;19&tDisplay&#61;yes&Page&#61;2&Size&#61;1&LanguageId&#61;1 Al-Ṭabarī Tafsir verse 55:19]|...On the authority of his father, on the authority of Ibn Abbas, in his saying: {The two seas meet.} He said: <b>A sea in the sky and earth that meet every year.</b> Others said: He meant the Persian Sea and the Roman Sea...}}And speaks of a cosmic waters that surround the Earth and heavens elsewhere.

{{Quote|Al-Tabari, Vol. 1, pp. 207-208|According to Muhammad b. Sahl b. 'Askar-Isma'il b. 'Abd al-Karim-Wahb, mentioning some of his majesty (as being described as follows): The heavens and the earth and the oceans are in the haykal, and the haykal is in the Footstool. God's feet are upon the Footstool. He carries the Footstool. It became like a sandal on His feet. When Wahb was asked: What is the haykal? He replied: Something on the heavens' extremities that surrounds the earth and the oceans like ropes that are used to fasten a tent. And when Wahb was asked how earths are (constituted), he replied: <b>They are seven earths that are flat and islands. Between each two earths, there is an ocean. All that is surrounded by the (surrounding) ocean, and the haykal is behind the ocean.</b>}}

Read online for free here: ''[https://archive.org/details/encyclopaedia-of-the-quran-6-volumes-jane-dammen-mc-auliffe/page/n481/mode/2up?q=Cosmology Encyclopaedia Of The Qur’an ( 6 Volumes)]. Page 15/325 / 482 of 3956 of PDF''</ref>  

{{Quote|Cosmology Entry. Space in cosmological context. [https://archive.org/details/EncyclopaediaOfTheQuranVol.1aD/page/n481/mode/2up Encyclopaedia Of The Qur’an.] pp. 445-446. Angelika Neuwirth. 2001.|‘The cryptic qur’anic statement about the two oceans has engendered diverse interpretations, mostly attempts to vindicate the geocentric Aristotelean-Ptolemaic world view. Only al-Tabari (d. 310/923) presents an interpretation in accordance with the qur'anic evidence, the image of a world swimming in an ocean and being covered by another ocean above the highest heaven. Al-Tabart (Ta/si, xxvii, 75, ad Q 55:19) states that the two oceans are located above the earth and around it respectively, the upper waters being fresh and sweet (‘adhbun furatun), the lower salty and bitter (milhun waqun).}}

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.

{{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.}}

As mentioned in the introductory paragraph, there are many classical scholars who have attributed the 'two seas' verses other than Moses reaching them (in Q18:60-65) as non-literal, in the sense that it is referring to the way that fresh water bodies of water are separate to the salty seas and oceans in general,<ref>Tafsir Ibn Kathir on [https://quranx.com/Tafsir/Kathir/25.51 Verse 25:51.] </ref>usually by land.<ref>Tafsir Al-Jalalayn on verse [https://quranx.com/Tafsir/Jalal/25.53 25:53]</ref> However once again it should be noted that it is not supported by the actual language of the Quran which designates the verse to be talking about two specific large bodies of water, rather than the many, many separate but unconnected bodies of fresh water across Earth. This view for example by Ibn Kathir seems supported by the fact that no-where on Earth has a sea with fresh water rather than a linguistic analysis (let alone there is no-where on Earth a freshwater sea touches a saltwater sea without merging).

==== Folklore and maps ====