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Sura 18’s importance in Muslim piety, noted last week, is affirmed in numerous ahadith. In one, a man was reciting the sura when “a cloud came down and spread over that man, and it kept on coming closer and closer to him till his horse started jumping (as if afraid of something). When it was morning, the man came to the Prophet, and told him of that experience. The Prophet said, ‘That was As-Sakina (tranquility) which descended because of (the recitation of) the Qur’an.’” As-Sakina is an adaptation of the Hebrew Shekinah, which refers in Jewish tradition to God’s presence in the world, and the cloud clearly recalls the cloud that accompanies God’s presence in Biblical passages such as Exodus 40:35. Like other Biblical concepts imported into Islam – notably, Jesus as the “Word of God” — it doesn’t have this strong a connotation in Islamic thought.
Verses 60-82 of Sura 18 contain one of the strangest, most arresting stories in the entire Qur’an: that of the journey of Moses and Khidr, one of the great road-trip stories of all time. Moses, traveling with his servant, forgets the fish they had carried along for their meal (vv. 60-64). Returning to retrieve it, they encounter “one of Our servants, on whom We had bestowed Mercy from Ourselves and whom We had taught knowledge from Our own Presence,” (v. 65). In Islamic tradition this man is identified as Al-Khadir or Al-Khidr, or, more commonly, Khidr, “the Green Man.” Some identify him as one of the prophets, others as a wali, a Muslim saint. Abu Hayyan Al-Gharnati, a fourteenth-century commentator on the Qur’an, points to v. 82, in which Khidr says he didn’t act “of my own accord,” to argue that he was a prophet – for if he was prompted by someone else, who could have prompted a man so holy as to instruct a prophet like Moses except Allah himself? However, another fourteenth-century Islamic scholar, Ibn Taymiyya, noted that “the majority of the ‘ulema [Islamic scholars] believe that he was not a Prophet.”
Anyway, at the beginning of their encounter, Moses asks Khidr: “May I follow thee,” so that “thou teach me something of the (Higher) Truth which thou hast been taught?” Khidr is leery (vv. 67-68), and finally agrees as long as Moses asks him no questions (v. 70). Moses agrees.
Khidr and Moses then get on a boat, which Khidr immediately scuttles – whereupon Moses breaks his promise for the first time, and upbraids Khidr (v. 71); Khidr reminds him of his promise (vv. 72-73). Shortly thereafter, Khidr murders a young man in an apparently random act, and Moses criticizes him again (v. 74), with the same exchange about the promise then following (vv. 75-76). Finally, Khidr rebuilds a wall that had fallen down in a town that had refused the two hospitality, and Moses scolds him yet again (v. 77), for he could have gotten wages for his action, which the two could have used to buy food and lodging.
Finally Khidr tells Moses that their journey is over, and explains his strange actions. (Muhammad commented: “We wished that Moses could have remained patient by virtue of which Allah might have told us more about their story.”) Khidr damaged the ship because a king is seizing “every boat by force,” but not ones that are unserviceable (v. 79) – presumably the poor owners of the boat could repair it once the king passed by. Khidr killed the young man because he would grieve his pious parents with his “rebellion and ingratitude” (v. 80), and Allah will give them a better son (v. 81). And as for the wall, there was buried treasure beneath it that belonged to boys too young to inherit it at this point — so repairing it gave them time to reach maturity while protecting the treasure from theft (v. 82).
Maududi enunciates the point of all this: “You should have full faith in the wisdom of what is happening in the Divine Factory in accordance with the will of Allah. As the reality is hidden from you, you are at a loss to understand the wisdom of what is happening, and sometimes if it appears that things are going against you, you cry out, ‘How and why has this happened’. The fact is that if the curtain be removed from the ‘unseen’, you would yourselves come to know that what is happening here is for the best. Even if some times it appears that something is going against you, you will see that in the end it also produces some good results for you.’”
The Qur’an translator Abdullah Yusuf Ali offers these four lessons from the story, including the idea that “even as the whole stock of the knowledge of the present day, the sciences and the arts, and in literature, (if it could be supposed to be gathered in one individual), does not include all knowledge. Divine knowledge, as far as man is concerned, is unlimited,” and “There are paradoxes in life: apparent loss may be real gain; apparent cruelty may be real mercy; returning good for evil may really be justice and not generosity (18:79-82). Allah’s wisdom transcends all human calculation.”
Another point emerges in Islamic tradition: don’t kill children, unless you know they’re going to grow up to be unbelievers. “The Messenger of Allah (may peace be upon him) used not to kill the children, so thou shouldst not kill them unless you could know what Khadir had known about the child he killed, or you could distinguish between a child who would grow up to he a believer (and a child who would grow up to be a non-believer), so that you killed the (prospective) non-believer and left the (prospective) believer aside.” The assumption thus enunciated may help explain the persistence of the phenomenon of honor-killing in Islamic countries and even among Muslims in the West.
In Islamic mystical tradition Khidr looms large. The eighth-century Sufi mystic Ibrahim Bin Adham (Abou Ben Adhem) once claimed: “In that wilderness I lived for four years. God gave me my eating without any toil of mine. Khidr the Green Ancient was my companion during that time — he taught me the Great Name of God.” Some consider Khidr to be immortal (Ibn Taymiyya thinks so). This idea rests on many arguments. Bayhaqi recounts that when Muhammad died, the assembled mourners heard a voice – identified as that of Khidr – exhorting them to trust in Allah. The idea also has a basis in Muhammad’s own words. Once Muhammad was telling his followers about the Dajjal, the anti-Christ figure who plays a large role in Islamic eschatology. The Dajjal, he explained, would kill a person and bring him back to life, and then would try to kill him again but would not be able to do so. “That person would be Khadir.”
In view of his immortality, not a few Muslim (and even some non-Muslim) mystics through the centuries have recounted meetings with him – here is a tongue-in-cheek, more recent example, as a man runs into Khidr at Home Depot.
(Here you can find links to all the earlier "Blogging the Qur'an" segments. Here is a good Arabic Qur’an, with English translations available; here are two popular Muslim translations, those of Abdullah Yusuf Ali and Mohammed Marmaduke Pickthall, along with a third by M. H. Shakir. Here is another popular translation, that of Muhammad Asad. And here is an omnibus of ten Qur’an translations.)
Posted by Robert at March 17, 2008 9:52 AM
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Is Khidr a survival of pre-Islamic Arab religions? He seems like the type of mythological figure that gets adapted to successor faiths.
Posted by: Anthony (Los Angeles)![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.jihadwatch.org/nav-commenters.gif)
at March 17, 2008 10:12 AM
I think the story about Khidr killing a young man "because he would grieve his pious parents with his “rebellion and ingratitude” (v. 80), and Allah will give them a better son (v. 81)" speaks volumes about Islam.
No wonder Muslims have so many children. So many get killed before they become adults.
Posted by: tanstaafl at March 17, 2008 10:40 AM
The rule against killing children doesn't explain the children used to sweep the minefields during the Iran-Iraq war (although there they could say the children were old enough to choose to martyr themselves) and it doesn't explain the concept of putting explosives in a baby bottle that, presumably, will be brought on a plane with the infant. Who could know the infant would grow up to be a non-believer? The baby in such a case didn't choose to do the act, so would he or she go to heaven?
Posted by: PMK at March 17, 2008 10:48 AM
Khidr killed the young man because he would grieve his pious parents with his “rebellion and ingratitude” (v. 80), and Allah will give them a better son
.....................................
This is such a disturbing story. When I first read the Qur'an (I have the somewhat workmanlike but very solid N. J. Dawood translation), it struck me how miuch this sounded like an "honor killing".
A few aspects, I think, make this killing even more disturbing--the man was killed because he "would grieve his parents"--apparently, he was killed entirely pro-actively.
This sounds very much like "honor killings" where girls are killed just on *suspicion* of improper realations with men, or of not being virgins. This is like the recent case where the girl, examined after her murder, was found to indeed still be a virgin, or the case in Iran, where two sisters are merely suspected of "improper" sexual relations with other men by their husbands, even though the tapes show nothing more than friendly, non-sexual interaction. These two young women may be stoned to death on nothing more than their husband's unfounded jealosies.
I hope no one here thinks this perverse hair-splitting. I consider the whole concept of "honor killing" entirely abhorent. What I want to emphasize here, though, is that even the woman completely willing to toe the Islamic line of "virtue" is in no way safe from the paranoid insecurities of her own relatives.
Presumably this young man murdered by Khidr appeared entirely blameless. Which brings me to the second point, as it relates to "honor killings"--Moses, presumably a good "Muslim" (in the context of the Qur'an) sees nothing blameworthy in the young victim, yet he is castigated for questioning Khidr's murdering him. Note also--Moses did not try to save the young man--he merely questioned Khidr's killing him after the fact. This definately can relate to friends or relatives of potential "honor killing" victims, who might be less likely to step in or report threats, since even the Islamic prophet Moses did nothing to try to stop the killing, since it was a respected figure committing the murder.
One last point--the statement that Allah will give the parents a "better son". This might explain, in part, the disturbing reactions of so many families to "honor killings", where the poor victim appears not to be mourned at all, but the perpetrators--in many cases perceived as the "better sons" are lamented over if they receive even short jail sentences for their crimes.
Posted by: gravenimage at March 17, 2008 11:37 AM
One wonders if Mohammed is poaching, and twisting, the story of Cain. There are certainly some resonances. The glosses on the story also explain a bit of Muslim fatalism.
Finally, it's hard to see how a cloud that makes a horse wild with fear could be "tranquillity." Horses are generally very sensitive to threats. One would think medieval Arabs would know this.
Posted by: Marwan'sDaughter at March 17, 2008 11:48 AM
"Shortly thereafter, Khidr murders a young man in an apparently random act, and Moses criticizes him again"
The "Green Ghost" did not get the memo, Thou Shall Not Murder, so it's no wonder that Moses criticized him.
What a fantastic story this is, as is all of Islam - just one big fantastic LIE after another.
Nice Saint Patrick's Day Tale - perhaps the "Green Man" was a leprechaun.
Posted by: champ at March 17, 2008 1:59 PM
Given "modern" education and literacy, it amazes me that people in developed countries will believe this gibberish. I can understand people in backwater villages, living day to day as illiterates under the guidance of some islamic cleric fomenting these fantastic stories.
But first world westernized nations, in both education and general scientific knowledge should be above all this. Yet we have people in Texas and Canada killing their daughters for not being islamic.
boggles the mind.
at March 17, 2008 3:10 PM
Chapter-18, Al-Kahf, The Cave
Part-2
The Surah being very important, some additional details on its subject-matter may be mentioned. It stated that God has revealed the Qur’an in order to remove the errors that had crept into the previous heavenly Scriptures. It warns those who ascribe a son to God that by so doing they incur Divine displeasure. These people hate Islam, and their beginning is not like their end. In the beginning they were very weak and were subjected to bitter persecution. God had mercy on them and delivered them from their trials and tribulations and put them on the road to progress and prosperity. But when they grew rich and prosperous, they resorted to idolatrous practices, and instead of turning to God, they turned to the world and became entirely lost to it. Muslims are warned to take a lesson from their fate and in the day of their own power and glory to be on their guard, particularly against being remiss in Divine worship, against excessive love of wealth and worldly possessions, and against a life of ease and luxury. The glory and power of Christian nations as compared with the degradation and poverty of Muslims are then graphically depicted in ‘the parable of two men’, one rich and the other poor. The rich man – Christian nations – would be proud of his riches while the poor man would turn to God. Pride and conceit would come to grief in the long run and circumstances beyond human control would bring about the rich man’s decline and gall. The Surah proceeds to give some detail of those great changed which were revealed to Moses in his Vision in which he was told that the development and progress of his Dispensation would fall far short of the great heights which another and a later Dispensation would attain. This later Dispensation – Islam – would bring to perfection and completion the teaching which the Mosaic Dispensation had left incomplete, and would emerge triumphant from the ashes of a declining and decadent Christendom. After having dealt with the decline and fall of Christian nations and with the rise of Islam, the Surah describes the conditions which would follow the triumph of Islam. It is stated that a time would come when Muslims would also turn their backs on religion and would become entirely engrossed in the pursuit of material wealth and power. To punish them of their sins God would once again grant success and prosperity to Christian nations which for a time had been restrained from advancing into Southern and Eastern regions. Then would come great destruction upon the world and nations of the world would be divided into two hostile camps, wedded to opposite ideologies. Sin and inequity would prevail in the world and injustice and tyranny would become rampant. When things would come to such a pass, God would create circumstances which would finally check he seemingly irresistible onrush of the flood threatening to engulf the entire world. While dealing with this subject, the Surah clearly hints that the same people would play an important part in arresting and stopping this flood who had once before broken the political power of Gog and Magog.
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Love for all, Hatred for None
at March 17, 2008 8:28 PM
A Knokar - a little kittman today?
What about the kid? Why did Khidr kill him? Isn't it a little presumptive for Khidr to assume he knew Allah's will? What sort of diety kills his followers for the assumption that they will greet their parents with “rebellion and ingratitude”? Are these suras justification for "honor killing"? Isn't horrible to kill your own children because of words in a book? Do you deny these words in the Qur'an? Are you an apostate? Or are you practicing taquiyya?
Posted by: tanstaafl at March 18, 2008 8:02 AM
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