turns blue.
In the Diwan al-Adab it has been said: "Bahr is called bahr as it is
spread." Some have said that bahr is that repository of floods which
has a broad expanse and has much water. Balir in Arabic means a vast
stretch of deep water (the sea). But occasionally balir is used for big
rivers to distinguish them from shallow streams. The Nile is designated
'Yam' (the ocean) as the territory now constituting Egypt was once a
part of the sea. The sea-water gradually receded and the land of Egypt
emerged with seven estuaries. This information has been given in the
early books. Writers have said about the sea that it is from abhr al-ma'
i.e., malulia (from "the water that has become brackish"') so that the
water of the sea is brackish. Nusayb says:
The brackishness of the sea has enhanced my disease and the sweet
water has become brackish.
Some have said: "It is called bahr as it is very deep, the earth cleaves, and
it is below the sea level." Buhayrah is also derived from it. When a shecamel gave birth to a litter of five young ones, her ears used to be cloven,
and such a she-camel was called buhayrah. We also say tabahhar —
"deeply read like the sea" because a man so well-read spans knowledge
from one corner to the other. It is called bahr because its water, owing
to heaviness and turbidity, changes colour. It is said: damun bahirun wa
bahrauiyuii, i.e., when the blood is heavy and blackish. The great deep
(lujjah bahr) is that sea from the middle of which the shores are not
visible. Some lexicographers have said lujjah is called sharm, and the sea
is also called sharm, as it carves a way for itself on the ground. Sharm
and balir also mean "to cut. " And also he (Nusayb) recited:
My love for 'Ulwah makes me wish we were upon a rock in the sea
alone, even though we had no wealth.
Khalil writes about yam that it is the sea whose depth none may fathom
nor are its shores visible. This is the lujjah bahr.
The expression, yarn al-sahil, is employed when the sea washes the
shore. There is no difference of opinion about the fact that yam is the
sea. The same word is used in Syriac. But the Qur'an contradicts Khalil,
since the word, yam, denotes every collected lot of water. God says:
Therefore We seized him and his hosts, and abondoned them
unto the yam. 83
The Pharoah was drowned in the Red Sea, where today, the city of Qulzum is situated at the extremity of the bay. The Hebrews know it as
Sujuj (i.e. Al-Bardi), since bardi or papyrus grows at the margin of the
bay. In the event, this is against Khalil's view.
Allah has said:
When thou fearest for him, then cast him into the yam . . . 84
It is all too obvious that yarn here neither means the Nile nor some
