53۞ وَهُوَ الَّذي مَرَجَ البَحرَينِ هٰذا عَذبٌ فُراتٌ وَهٰذا مِلحٌ أُجاجٌ وَجَعَلَ بَينَهُما بَرزَخًا وَحِجرًا مَحجورًاMuhammad AsadAND HE it is who has given freedom of movement to the two great bodies of water1 - the one sweet and thirst-allaying, and the other salty and bitter - and yet has wrought between them a barrier and a forbidding ban.2The noun bahr, usually signifying "sea", is also applied to large agglomerations of sweet-water, like rivers, lakes, etc.; in the above context, the dual al-bahrayn denotes 'the two great-bodies [or "kinds"] of water" - the salty and the sweet - existing side by side on earth.I.e., has caused them - as if by an invisible barrier - to remain distinct in kind despite their - continuous meeting and mingling in the oceans: an indirect reminder of God's planning creativeness inherent in the cyclic transformation of water - its evaporation from the salty seas, followed by a formation of clouds, their condensation into rain and snow which feed springs and rivers, and - its return to the seas. Some Muslim mystics see in this stress on the two kinds of water an allegory of the gulf - and, at the same time, interaction - between man's spiritual perceptions, on the one hand, and his worldly needs and passions, on the other.