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When the Qur’aa speaks about the divider between fresh and salt water, it mentions the existence of "a forbidding partition" with the barrier. "It is He Who has Let free the two bodies of flowing water: One palatable and sweet, and the other salty and bitter; yet has He Made a barrier between them, and a partition that is forbidden To be passed." [25:53] Modern science has discovered that in estuaries, where fresh (sweet) and salt-water meet, the situation is somewhat different from that found in places where two seas meet. It has been discovered that what distinguishes fresh water from salt water in estuaries is a "pycnocline zone with a marked density discontinuity separating the two layers." (1) This partition (zone of separation) has salinity different from both the fresh water and the salt water. (2)

Longitudinal section showing salinity (parts per thousand ‰) in an estuary. We can see here the partition (zone of separation) between the fresh and the salt water. (3) This phenomenon occurs in several places, including Egypt, where the river Nile flows into the Mediterranean Sea. Also the estuary of the Tigris and Euphrates where they unite to form what one might call a 'sea' over 100 miles long, the Shatt Al Arab. The above phenomena have been discovered recently, using advanced equipments measuring temperature, salinity, density, oxygen dissolubility, etc. The human eye cannot distinguish between the two bodies of water; rather they appear to be as one homogeneous sea. Likewise, the human eye cannot see the division of water in estuaries into the three kinds: fresh water, salt water, and the partition. (4)