God the Almighty has said: {You cause the night to enter the day, and You cause the day to enter the night; and You bring the living out of the dead, and You bring the dead out of the living. And You give provision to whom You will without account}1. The Night is the disbeliever, for he is the place of darkness and its element; and the Day is the believer, for he is the place of light and from it. When He placed everyone in the world of Intermingling (al-mizaj), the disbeliever began to emerge from the believer and the believer from the disbeliever, through the execution of the judgment and the establishment of power.
The emergence of the believer from the disbeliever and the disbeliever from the believer occurs through the law of transitions and procreation. The disbeliever emerges from the believer through procreation, while the believer is living through the recognition of God; likewise, the believer — who is the living — may give birth to the rejecting disbeliever — who is the dead. Thus the believer is alive forever and does not die; rather, he remains through the recognition of God the Almighty, while the disbeliever is dead forever.
This is the indication of our Lord Abu Abd Allah al-Husayn ibn Hamdan al-Khasibi — may God ennoble his station — in his saying:
Water is a majestic person, by whom life is prolonged.
He did not mean the water that is drunk, for a person might drink a gulp of it and choke, or drown in the Tigris, the Euphrates, or other waters, or ride on the Nile or the salt sea and drown.
God the Mighty and Sublime has described the salty and fresh waters, saying: {And not alike are the two seas. This one is fresh and sweet, pleasant for drink, and this one is salty and bitter. And from each you eat tender meat and extract ornaments which you wear, and you see the ships therein plowing through, that you may seek of His bounty; and perhaps you will be grateful}2. The Fresh and Sweet (al-adhbu al-furatu) is the recognition of God the Almighty, pleasant for drink, which emerges from the Gate in some narrations.