Chapter 20 focuses on the quest for divine knowledge through the tale of Prophet Musa and Khidr.
It starts simply enough, in the tafsir of Suratul Kahf, Prophet Musa is giving a sermon to a group of people, and somebody asks him “Are you the most knowledgeable person in the world?” And Prophet Musa says, “Yes,” which is understandable because he believes he is the only prophet and messenger at the time, therefore the most knowledgeable. Alas, Allah tells him, “No, you are not. There is somebody more knowledgeable than you, that we have bestowed our knowledge upon.”
Immediately Prophet Musa says, “I want to meet him.” And then Allah says, “Take a fish in a basket and wherever the fish is lost, follow it; you will find him at that place.”
Thus begins Prophet Musa’s quest for knowledge. He is thirsty for it. He says he would travel to the end of the earth to find this person and learn from him. He takes his trusted servant who is also enthused with this noble path and starts on this journey.
Ya Ikhwaan, let’s ask ourselves, why do we travel?
A lot of us, myself included, travel for vacation, fun, to relax, to give our kids the opportunity tolearn about the world. But how many of us travel to learn?To look for scholars that we have heard of and go to sit at their feet to learn from them?
Something to think about, yes? I know it truly got me thinking and resolving to make a conscious decision to do something about this.
So, I am skipping the hypothesis Sister Sadaf shares at this point about the fish- a salt fish and why it made its way to the particular point in the journey it does, but what happens is, that the fish does make its way as Allah predicts and both Musa and his servant boy, Yushua bin Noor, miss it. When they are ready to take their noon meal, Yusha remembers seeing the fish making its way but didn’t tie it to the place they were to look out for.
Despite this obvious error, what does Musa do? What does Prophet Musa say?
“Subhanallah, that’s what we’re looking for! Let’s go back.” That’s it.
There’s no reprimand, no shouting, no annoyance. No ‘Time has passed’ or ‘We’ve burnt fuel’, etc., etc. It’sqadrallah, they missed the chance and went off course.
They go back together, alhamdulillah, they see the mark of how the fish left, trace it and there is Khidr. And then Musa does something beautiful. He seeks permission from him. He says, “May I follow you on the condition that you teach me from what you have been taught of sound judgment?”
Learning is an act of humility and no matter how high-placed you perceive yourself to be,you can only learn if you seek permission and learn humbly.
Something else our sister mentions is how some of the greatest lessons are not learnt within the four walls of a classroom. Khidr’s knowledge, Prophet Yusuf’s knowledge and skill, Prophet Suleiman’s wisdom- bestowed. Beneficial knowledge is bestowed as Allah deems fit.Remember that.
Now after asking this question, Khidr uses the word ‘Lan’ in Arabic instead of ‘La’. As an Arabic learner, or not, you’re probably familiar with the word ‘No’ in Arabic, a.k.a ‘La’ but ‘Lan’? Not really. It’s a more pronounced ‘No’. In this case ‘Never’. Khidr tells Prophet Musa:
Surat Al-Kahf (The Cave) – سورةالكهف
He said, “Indeed, with me you will never be able to have patience.
And rightly so.As a divinely guided messenger speaking to one who does not understand the ways of His Lord, how will he understand? How will we? However, Prophet Musa is determined. He tells Khidr that Allah will grant him patience and their practical classes begin.
We know the three stories. And Prophet Musa queries him each time. This is not done out of rudeness but the sincerity of his heart and an understanding of his concept of right and wrong.
The stories go thus:
First, innocent hardworking people own a boat and Khidr scuttles it.
Second, a young seemingly innocent boy, Khidr kills him
Third, a village refuses to be hospitable to them, but Khidr builds up a wall that is falling in the environs.
By the 2nd complaint, Khidr had warned Musa that if he couldn’t contain himself, they would have to part ways and so by the time the 3rd incident occurred and our ‘student’ voiced his concerns again, automatically, the lessons ended.
At this point, we learn Allah’s wisdom behind these decisions:
In the first story, a tyrant king was seizing the boats from the people. Since the owners of the scuttled boat had only one in their fleet, to remove the King’s interest, the boat was scuttled. It would be easier to repair than to purchase a new one.
In the second story, the little boy wasn’t a pious child and would have caused his parents sorrow and grief or even led the parents astray. Allah had decreed that this child return to Him and the parents be granted a more pious child that would be soothing and beneficial to them.
In the final story, it was not a case of expecting payment from the people in the town who had been inhospitable. The father of two orphans had passed away and he had buried treasure for the kids to inherit under the wall. The command was to protect the treasure for the orphans by repairing the wall.
The lessons from these are profound,subhanallah.
- A supposed disappointment or mishap might be saving you from a larger catastrophe
- Children are a test. They can be a means of blessing anda means of torment. Sometimes when a child dies in their youth, it’s highly probable that this is something that Allah may be saving you from or testing you with. We also know that when children die in their youth, they have permission to bring their parents into Jannah. Do you know if this is how Allah has deemedthat you will enter Jannah?
- Next, the father was the one who was righteous in the story of the children whose treasure was kept safe. So, the child’s father’s prayer is passed on to the offspring.
Most importantly, I think in all three of these stories, there wasn’t anything that Khidr did as a result of his decision. Everything he did was as decreed by Allah. It’s important to realise that the knowledge of the unseen remains with Allah. Khidr didn’t have any reason, or authority except what Allah had given him.
Prophet Musa asked questions. Humans are impatient. We pray to Allah to grant us patience, especially in learning. But, he was also humble. Whenever he did something wrong, he quickly apologised and was eager to keep learning.
My lesson here – have good thoughts about Allah. Often, things seem grossly harsh and unfair. Remember, you do not see the full picture.We are like ants. There’s a huge carpet and the ants, all they can see is a little thread, the little black thread in the entire pattern. They don’t realise that the entire pattern of the carpet is green, gold, and black. All theysee is the black.
That’s how huge Allah’s Qadr is. We must trust in that black pattern, believe that there is a reason for it and that Our Rabb will only do the best for us because He is the Most Just.
Alhamdullilah.
