'In the name of Allah, the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful' His saying, exalted and glorified is He: ﴿And the two seas are not alike. This one is fresh and sweet, pleasant to drink, and that one is salty and bitter. And from each of them you eat tender meat and extract ornaments which you wear. And you see the ships therein ploughing through it, that you may seek of His bounty, and perhaps you will be grateful.﴾ This is another verse by which every rational person can draw evidence, and it is clear that there is no entrance for an idol in it. And 'the two seas' refers to all salty water and all fresh water wherever it may be. So He means by this the entirety of this and the entirety of that. And 'the sweet' refers to the intensely fresh water, and 'the bitter' refers to the intensely salty water which tends towards bitterness due to its salinity. Al-Rummani said: It is from: I have ignited the fire, as if it burns from its heat. And 'Isa al-Thaqafi read: 'pleasant to drink' without an alif and with a shadda on the ya. And Talha read: 'salty' with a fatha on the meem and a kasra on the lam. (p-209) And 'the tender meat' refers to fish, which is found in both seas. Likewise, the ships sail in both seas, and the ornaments remain, which are pearls and corals. Al-Zajjaj and others said: This expression implies that the ornament is extracted from both of them, and it is only extracted from the salty water, and that is permissible, as He said in another verse: ﴿From both of them emerge pearls and corals.﴾ [al-Rahman: 22] And as He said: ﴿O assembly of jinn and mankind, did there not come to you messengers from among you?﴾ [al-An'am: 130] And the messengers are indeed from mankind. Some people said: Rather, the ornament comes from both seas; and that is because the shell of the pearl is said to be affected by the rainwater, from which what is extracted and the jewel is found in it, and from which it splits in the sea at its death and its jewel is extracted due to thirst and other tricks. So this is from the fresh water, and the extraction is attributed to it because of this. Also, the fresh sea entirely pours into the bitter sea, so the extraction comes from both of them together. And Abu Dhuhayyab was mistaken in his saying regarding the description of the jewel: ؎ It came with what you wished from the watery place ∗∗∗ upon its face, the water of the fresh sea is surging. And that is not an error according to what we have mentioned of the interpretation of this group. And 'the ships' in this context is plural, evidenced by its description in the plural. And 'ploughing' is the plural of 'plougher,' which is that which ploughs the water, meaning it splits it. It is said: the plougher is that which splits the wind, and at that time the sound occurs, and 'the sound' is the sound that occurs from the movement of the ship by the wind. And the interpreters have expressed this with phrases that do not specifically pertain to the wording. Some of them said: The ploughers are (p-210) those which come and go with one wind. And Mujahid said: The wind ploughs the ships, and the wind does not plough from the ships except the great ships. Thus, this wording occurred in al-Bukhari, and the correct view is that the ships are the ploughers, not the ploughed ones. And His saying, exalted and glorified is He: ﴿[that you may seek]﴾ means through trade, pilgrimage, warfare, and every journey that has a lawful purpose.