format_quote Originally Posted by
Whatsthepoint
What's this ahem for? do you think Cousteau did convert?:)
Lol no that's not what it was for. I was merely drawing your attention to how the ayat related to Cousteau's ''problem''.
What is it about then?
Islamic sites aren't consistent on this one. Most claim the hadith speaks about seas, this thread is about springs of fresh water...
Time to whip out my Yusuf Ali translation;
Sura 25 verse 53, Scholar's notes:
''In the world taken as a whole, there are two bodies of water (the great salt ocean and the bodies of sweet water fed by rain). They are free to mingle, and in a sense do mingle for there is a regular water cycle; and the rivers flow constantly to the sea, and tidal revers get sea water for several miles up their estuaries at high tide. Yet in spite of all of this, the laws of gravitation are like a barrier or partition set by God, by which the two bodies of water as a whole are always kep apart and distinct.
In the case of rivers carrying large quantities of water to the sea, like the mississippi or the Yangtse-Kiang, the river water with its stilt remains disntict from sea water for a long distance out at sea. But the wonderful sign is that the two bodies of water, though they pass through each other, remain distinct bodies, with their distinct functions.''
For ''a partition that is forbidden to be pased'', Yusuf ali's commentary on the matter is: ''Again a new symbolic contrast: the two bodies of water, sweet and salt, free to mingle yet distinct as by an impassable barrier.'' He goes in to more depth about the symbolism but that's not the issue we're discussing.
I also have another translation that deals with this particular ayat in a more sucinct way - I'll put it in tomorrow tho, cus it's late.