Shaykh al-Islām—may Allah have mercy on him—said:

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Allah Most High said:

“Have you not seen how Allah sends down water from the sky and channels it into springs in the earth, then brings forth crops of different colours with it? Then they wither, and you see them turn yellow; then He makes them dry fragments. Indeed, in that is a reminder for people of understanding.”

He, glorified be He, tells us that He channels the water descending from the sky into springs. Yanābīʿ (springs) is the plural of yanbūʿ, meaning a source of water, such as a spring or a well. Thus, the Quran indicates that water descending from the sky wells up from the earth. Observation bears this out: when rainfall is abundant, springs become abundant; when it is scarce, they become scarce. Rainwater descends from clouds, which Allah forms from the air in the atmosphere and from rising vapours.

The Quran does not state that all water that wells up comes from rainwater, nor is this established by observation, for water may spring from within mountains,