"Moses and Khidr went off until when they embarked on a boat and Khidr made a hole in it. (Moses) said: "Did you make a hole in this boat to drown its people? Verily, you have done an evil, bad, dreadful thing."
(Khidr) said: "Did I not tell you, that you would not be able to have patience with me?" (Moses) said: "Call me not to account for what I forgot, and be not hard upon me for my affair with you."
Then they both proceeded, till they met a boy. Khidr killed him. (Moses) said: "Have you killed an innocent person who had killed none? Verily, you have done a prohibited, evil, dreadful thing!" (Khidr) said: Did I not tell you, that you would not be able to have patience with me? "(Moses) said: "If I ask you anything after this, keep me not in your company, you have received an excuse from me."
Then they both proceeded, till, when they came to the people of a town, Moses and Khidr asked them for food, but they refused to entertain them. Then they found therein a wall about to collapse, and (Khidr) set it up straight. (Moses) said: "If you had wished, surely you could have taken wages for it!"
(Khidr) said: "This is the parting between me and you, I will tell you the interpretation of those things over which you were unable to hold patience."
As for the ship, it belonged to poor people working in the sea. So, I wished to make a defective damage in it to make it temporarily unserviceable, as there was a king after them who seized every ship by force.
And as for the boy, his parents were believers, and we feared lest he should oppress them by rebellion and disbelief. So, we intended that their Lord should change him for them for one better in righteousness and near to mercy.
And as for the wall, it belonged to two orphan boys in the town; and there was under it a treasure belonging to them, and their father was a righteous man, and your Lord intended that they should attain their age of full strength; and take out their treasure as a mercy from your Lord, And I did it not of my own accord. That is the interpretation of those things over which you could not hold patience."
- you can continue listening to the rest of the previous story in the next podcast (Verses 222-235), the story "The mask of evil"
- A glance over the story of Khidr and Moses
Most readers are probably familiar with who Prophet Moses was, the Prophet who freed the Children of Jacob from the Egyptian Pharaoh. They may be less familiar with (Khidr), “someone who was more knowledgeable than he,” who has sapiential wisdom which is “to taste,” “to realize,” “to be transformed,” having gained knowledge through purifying consciousness and replacing reason with intuition. As the Quran tells us:
Certainly, there had been in their narratives a lesson for those imbued with intuition. (Q12:111)
Moses meets with “someone who was more knowledgeable than he,” whom they designated as Khidr. Khidr is a spiritual guide who comes to people in their dream visions or through clairvoyance. Clairvoyance refers to discernment. It is the power of discerning objects not present to the senses; the power to perceive matters beyond the range of ordinary perception. In other words, it is an experience “beyond perception.”
The dream vision world is known as coming from a barrier or intermediate world between the material, physical world, and the spiritual world. It is also known as the world of likenesses, and home to our creative imagination. As a realm of existence that mediates between different levels of existence, an understanding of this allows dream visions or visionary experiences—which have played a major role in many fields of Muslim life from historiography to medicine—to exist in a special sphere of existence of its own. They are, as in this case, another method of teaching the spiritual path. The Quran refers to Khidr as “a servant among My servants.” Khidr has what is known as literally, “knowledge from Our side,” or direct knowledge that proceeds from the Presence of God without a human intermediary. Therefore, the meeting of Moses and Khidr had to be through a dream vision and not that Khidr had assumed a human form. If Khidr had assumed a human form, this would contradict the Quranic narration. This narration is the story of Moses’s heart or consciousness (heart) fluctuating between reason and learning about “knowledge from Our side,” also known as “intuitive experience knowledge” in his encounter with “Khidr.” This experience is a process known as purifying consciousness. We do not know when this dream-vision took place, but as we will show it had to be early in the life of Moses before he became a Messenger/Prophet.
