FRESH WATER ON EARTH
It is a well known fact that about four fifth of the earth’s surface is covered with water, a palpable sign of God’s bounty to His creatures on earth and a sign of His perfect order. Dr. El Fandy comments on this fact saying:
This large amount of water is not accidental or in vain, but according to precise measure in order that the earth holds it and thus affords an environment suitable for life to nourish and flourish on it. This large amount of water, however:
(a) prevents the occurrence of large differences in air temperature between winter and summer.
(b) Provides the atmosphere with water vapour sufficient for the fresh water cycle.[66]
God Almighty attracts our attention to the extreme importance of a very simple fact in our life i.e. fresh water. We take it for granted that fresh water is there for us to drink, and we forget the bounteous power behind it. In The Holy Qur’an, God says:
Have you considered the water you drink?
Did you send it down from the clouds, or
did We send it?
Did We will, We would make it bitter; so
why are you not thankful?
Chapter 56 verses (68 – 70)
The fresh water cycle is one of God’s wonders to maintain life on earth. Rainfall, as we have seen, is the result of the condensation of water vapour ascending from the vast areas of water on the earth’s surface, and under certain climatic conditions it falls down in the form of rain drops, hail or snow.
Rainfall in itself is amazing, for it shows God’s perfect order in the universe. God has subjected the sun to sub serve man in many ways, one of them is that it is a direct cause of water evaporation from seas and oceans. At the same time, God has enveloped the earth with an atmospheric cover to protect us from the danger of heavenly bodies that might fall on our earth. The atmospheric cover also helps in preserving the earth’s main source of life i.e. fresh water from being wasted in the vast universe.
The Holy Qur’an is an inexhaustible reservoir of knowledge for us to meditate and try to come closer to our Bounteous Creator We read in The Holy Qur’an:
By heaven of the returning rain [67]
God here swears “By heaven of the returning rain”. And when God swears by something, it should be of paramount value. He wants to attract our attention to the importance of the atmospheric cover, for one of its multiple functions is to prevent the water vapour from being wasted in the infinite space, and helps in dropping it back on earth in the form of fresh water. Otherwise the earth would have been like the moon i.e. a dead planet.
Again, God attracts our attention to His merciful and bounteous nature towards His creatures. He makes heavenly barriers between fresh and salted water. He says in The Holy Qur’an:
And it is He who let forth the two seas this one sweet,
grateful to taste, and this
salt, bitter to the tongue,
and He set between them a barrier, and a ban forbidden,[68]
He who made the earth a fixed place
and set amidst it rivers
and appointed for it firm mountains
and placed a partition between the two seas.
Is there a god with God? [69]
These two verses indicate God’s power and generosity for it is but a miracle that the fresh water does not mix up with the salted water. There is a heavenly rule that governs this relationship, for it has been proved that fresh water floats over salted one, as if there is a barrier that forbids them from being mixed up.
We cannot help but thinking what would have happened if these barriers were not there! Sure, fresh water would not have been available and life would have been impossible.
In one of his lectures Sheikh Azzindani comments on the verse “and placed a partition between the two seas,” saying that the two seas in this verse could also be two salted ones. It was not until 1873 that Man knew that salted seas are not of the same quality and that the qualification of water in each differs from the other. They differ in the degree of salt, temperature, condensation, water animals and the ability to dissolve oxygen.
He goes on saying that for the first time in 1942 and as a result of long strenuous researches from hundred different marine stations, it was found that the Atlantic ocean, for example, consists of different seas each with its own qualifications.
If this is the case in one ocean, it is but natural that two different seas would differ, for example, the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean . A question that comes to one’s mind: Why these two seas do not mix? The answer is that there is a water partition that acts as a border between them. These borders cannot be seen, but can be proved by accurate and minute measurements of the degree of salt, temperature…etc.
He adds explaining the same verse saying that the word “مرج “ means “mix” and “برزخ” means “partition”, but the verse adds a very important word “لا يبغيان” which means that they do not overrun one another. So, the verse does not deny mixing, but it denies the overrunning of one sea over the other. This partition does not allow a quick mixing, because has this mixing been quick the big sea would have overrun the small one and stamps it with all its qualifications. But this partition makes this mixing very slow and over a long period so that the water that overruns from one sea to the other loses its qualifications and acquires the qualifications of the new ones.
It is but natural that there should be a partition between salted seas and rivers which we call estuary. This estuary has a special environment that shuns out the fish in both the sea and the river and allows for a special kind of fish.
Have you thought my dear friend, why God has created rivers narrow and short in comparison with the great width and length of oceans and seas? Rivers are made so that their fresh water does not evaporate easily while oceans are wide so that evaporation takes place on a large scale. And because I think God gives us water according to our needs, while preserving the greater part in the form of salt water to evaporate and ironically becomes the main source of fresh water on earth.
What is really interesting is that it has been proved that pearls, as they are obtained from certain kinds of seas, they can be also obtained from certain kinds of rivers. Pearls could be found in the sweet water in England Wales Scotland Japan
سورة الرحمن الآيات 19 – 23
He let forth the two seas that meet together,
between them a barrier they do not over pass.
Oh which of your Lord’s bounties will you and you deny?
From them come forth the pearl and the coral [70]
Not equal are the two seas; this is sweet, grateful to taste,
delicious to drink,
and that is salt, bitter to the tongue
yet of both you eat
fresh flesh, and bring forth out of it ornaments
for you to wear [71]
I think the “two seas” in the first verse is explained by the other verse one is sweet while the other is salted i.e. rivers and seas and oceans.
[66]“Islam and Science”, book VI, by Prof. Dr. M.G. El Fandy
[67] Chapter 86 verse 11
[68] Chapter 25 verse 53
[69] chapter 26 verse 61
[70] Chapter 55 verses 19-23
[71] Chapter 35 verse 12
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