Tafsir of Fatir 35:12

Al-Raghib said: Al-furat is fresh water, used for both singular and plural; perhaps the description is based on this. [It is] like a garment that is jet black and yellow-intense. {Sweet to drink}, easy to swallow, due to its freedom from what the soul finds repulsive. Isa read it as siygh like mayyit with a tashdid (shadda), and the same is narrated from Abu ‘Amr and ‘Asim. Isa also read it as siygh like mayyit with lightened [consonants]. {And this one is salty}, its taste altered by the well-known alteration. Abu Nahik and Talha read milh with a fatha on the mim and a kasra on the lam. Abu al-Fath al-Razi said: "This is a rare dialect." It is permitted that it is a shortened form of malih for the sake of lightening, and this is built upon the occurrence of malih. The truth is that its occurrence is rare, and it is not a poor dialect as has been said.

The Imam distinguished between milh and malih by stating that milh is water in which the taste is known by original creation, like sea water, and malih is water into which salt has been placed so its taste changed, and it is only referred to as malih. I have not seen this [distinction] from anyone else. Some said: Malih was not mentioned at all, and this is an opinion that is not "sweet" (malih). {Bitter}, intense in saltiness and heat, from their saying ajij al-nar (the flare of fire) and its ajatuha. From here it is said: It is that which burns with its saltiness. This is a parable struck for the believer and the disbeliever. His saying, the Almighty: {And from each}—meaning from each of the two—{you eat tender meat}, meaning fresh and new; it is fish, according to what is narrated from al-Suddi. Others said it is birds and fish, and many preferred the former. Expressing fish as "meat" while it is an animal, it is said, is to hint that its benefit is restricted to eating. Describing it as "tender" is to signal its delicacy and to warn to hasten to eat it so that corruption does not hasten upon it, as is indicated by making each of the two seas a source of its consumption.

Malik and al-Thawri inferred from the verse—since it names fish as "meat"—that one who swears an oath not to eat meat, but then eats fish, has broken his oath. Others said: He does not break it, because oaths are based on custom, and according to custom, it is not called meat. For this reason, one who swears not to ride a beast, then rides a disbeliever, does not break his oath, even though Allah the Almighty called him a "beast" in His saying: {Indeed, the worst of beasts in the sight of Allah are those who have disbelieved}. It is not far-fetched to me that "meat" is intended to mean the meat of fish, and the claim of hinting that the benefit of fish is restricted to eating, I do not think it is sound. {And you extract}—its apparent meaning is "and from each you extract"—{ornaments which you wear}. The ornament extracted from the salty sea is pearls and coral, and both men and women wear that, even if the manner of wearing differs. Or, it is said that he expressed the wearing of their women as their own wearing because they are from them, or because their wearing is for their sake. We do not know of an ornament extracted from the fresh sea, and there is no appearance here of considering the attribution of [something] from a part to the whole, as was considered in His saying: {From both of them emerge pearl and coral}. And the fact that some rocks in the paths of floods might break and diamonds are found within them—which is an ornament worn—even if true, it does not benefit considering it here, for there is no "extraction of an ornament" from the fresh sea in an apparent sense. It is said: It is not far-fetched that the ornament extracted from that is the bones of fish, from which are made hilts for swords and daggers, for instance, so they are carried and one adorns oneself with them. There is what there is in this, especially if the ornament is like jewelry—what one adorns oneself with from manufactured minerals or stones. Al-Khafaji said: There is no obstacle to pearls emerging from fresh water, even if we have not seen it; and the remoteness in that is not hidden.

Some of the dignitaries went—to escape the back-and-forth—that the intended meaning is: "And you extract from the salty sea especially an ornament which you wear." This is sensed by the words of al-Suddi. This holds three possibilities: The first is that he digressed to the description of the two seas and the blessings and benefits within them.

The second is that it is a completion and perfection of the parable to prefer the one being compared to the one compared, and it is not from the "nurturing of the metaphor" as al-Tayyibi claimed in anything. Rather, it is a rectification of the claim of equivalence between the two, which would necessitate that the thing being compared be stronger. This rectification is specific to the salty one. Its clarification is that he likened the believer and the disbeliever to the two seas, then favored the ajjaj (bitter sea) over the disbeliever in that it shares with the fresh water in benefits, whereas the disbeliever is devoid of benefit. This is according to the style of His saying, the Almighty: {Then your hearts became hardened after that, being like stones or even harder.} Then He said, the Almighty: {And indeed, there are stones from which rivers gush out, and there are some of them that split open and water comes out, and there are some that fall down for fear of Allah.} The third is that it is from the completion of the parable, meaning that although the two seas share some benefits, they differ in what is intrinsically intended, because one of them had something mixed with it that did not keep it on the purity of its original nature. Likewise, the believer and the disbeliever, even if they agree in some virtues like courage and generosity, they differ in that which is the basis, for one remains upon the original nature while the other does not. Thus, the sentence {And from each...} is a state [clause]. In my opinion, the best of the three is the middle one. In any case, the answer is achieved to the objection of how the mention of the benefits of the salty sea is appropriate when the disbeliever was likened to it. Abu Hayyan said: Indeed, His saying, the Almighty: {And the two seas are not alike}, etc., is to clarify that which every person of intellect uses as evidence that [the universe] is something in which an idol has no part.

The Imam said: The most apparent [view] is that it is evidence for the perfection of the power of Allah, the Exalted. What we mentioned first—that it is a parable for the believer and the disbeliever—is the famous [view] in both narration and study, and it contains aspects of the beauties of rhetoric. {And you see the ships}—{plowing through it}, meaning in each of them. Look at whether it is good for the pronoun to return to the salty sea, due to the mind being led to it by His saying: {And you extract ornaments which you wear}, based on the fact that it is well known that they are extracted from it exclusively, and the affair of the ships in it is greater than their affair in the fresh sea. For this reason, he restricted the seeing of the ships in it to the state that Allah mentioned, and he made the pronoun of address singular despite the plural [in the context] before it and after it, because the address is to everyone who is capable of seeing, not just those who benefit from the two seas. {Plowing through it}—cutting through the water, running forward and backward with a single wind. Al-makhr is the act of cleaving.

Al-Raghib said: It is said, "The ship plowed (makharat) a plowing and a mukhur," if it cleaves the water with its prow. In al-Kashshaf: It is said, "The ship plowed the water." The clouds are called "daughters of the plowing" because they plow the air. Al-sufn (sailing), from which the word "ship" (safina) is derived, is close to al-makhr, because it "ships" (scrapes) the water as if it were peeling it, just as it plows it. It is said that al-makhr is the sound of the ships' movement. It came in Surat al-Nahl {And you see the ships plowing through it}, with {plowing} preceding {through it}, while here it is the reverse. It is said regarding its aspect: It is because he attached {through it} here to "you see," while there he attached it to "plowing." This does not resolve the root of the question.

What appears to me regarding this is that the verse in al-Nahl was brought for the enumeration of blessings, as is indicated by its predecessors and successors, and the following of the verses with His saying, the Almighty: {And if you should count the favor of Allah, you could not enumerate them}. Therefore, the most important thing there was to present what is a blessing, which is the plowing of the ships through the water. This is unlike the case here, for it was brought only as a digression or completion to the parable, as you have known earlier. Thus, {through it} was presented to signal that this is not the intrinsically intended meaning. It is as if the importance given there required saying in that verse {and that you may seek} with the "wa" (and), and the contradiction of this here required the omission of the "wa" in His saying, the Almighty: {That you may seek of His bounty}, meaning from the bounty of Allah the Almighty by traveling in them. Even if He, the Exalted, was not mentioned in the verse, He was mentioned in what came before it. Even if He had not been mentioned, it would not be problematic because the meaning points to Him, the Almighty.

The lam is connected to "plowing," and it is permitted that it be connected to a deleted [word] indicated by the mentioned verbs, such as "He subjected the two seas" and prepared them, or "He did that" {that you may seek of His bounty} {and that you may give thanks}—that you may recognize His rights, the Almighty, and thus perform His obedience and unify Him, the Exalted.

Perhaps the lam is for causation, which is the position of a group of the dignitaries, and we have mentioned this. Many said: It is for hope, and since [hope] is impossible for Him, the Almighty, the intended meaning is the necessity of what was mentioned of blessings for [the duty of] thanksgiving, until it is as if everyone is hoping for it from the One who bestowed it upon them. It is a parable that leads to His command, the Almighty, to the addressed to give thanks.