Home > Surah 25 - The Criterion
1. Estuary Reality:
The text claims a "forbidding partition" (ḥijran maḥjūran) stops fresh and salt water from mixing. In reality, estuaries are dynamic zones where fresh and salt water actively mix to create brackish water. No magical barrier exists.
2. Visual Fallacy:
The verse mistakes a superficial local observation—where silt and salinity create temporary visual boundaries at river outputs—for an impenetrable divine wall.
The Quran Verse
Surah 25:53:
And it is He who has released the two seas, one fresh and sweet and one salty and bitter, and He placed between them a barrier and a forbidding partition."
Modern apologists often claim this refers to "haloclines" in the deep ocean, but historical-critical analysis suggests a much simpler, local observation.
To a 7th-century Arab, this "miracle" is likely an observation of an estuary—where a freshwater river flows into the salty sea. While they may appear distinct due to turbidity or color, they do mix; they create "brackish water."
The verse claims there is a "forbidding partition" (ḥijran maḥjūran) that prevents them from mixing. In reality, there is no physical or magical barrier—it is a dynamic zone of gradual mixing. The Quran describes a static, magical barrier where science shows a physical mixing process.