Al-Khidr (a): Difference between revisions

'''Khiḍr''' (Arabic: الخضر) is a prophet or a saint of God whose name is not explicitly mentioned in the [[Quran]]. According to some [[hadiths]], he is a person with divinity-given knowledge (al-'ilm al-ladunni). The Quran, 18:60-82, tells the story of the prophet, [[Moses (a)]], meeting and accompanying a man. This man is said to be Khidr. In this story, Khidr scuttled a ship owned by some poor people, killed an innocent boy, and destroyed a ruined wall without receiving any wage. Moses objected to his actions, and at the end, Khidr gave an explanation of why he did them.

Khidr is said to be from the progeny of the prophet, [[Isaac (a)]]. According to hadiths, Khidr is alive, just as [[Jesus the Christ]] is alive. There are numerous hadiths in Shiite hadith collections concerning Khidr’s character, the story of his encounter with Moses (a), and his meetings with [[the Prophet Muhammad (s)]] and the Shiite [[Imams (a)]]. Khidr is also mentioned in the Sufi literature and Persian poems as a guide to mystical journeys who has the position of [[wilaya]].

There is a lot of disagreement over Khidr’s name and lineage in sources of Islamic history. Ibn Habib (d. 245 AH/859)—one of the earliest Muslim historians—mentioned Khidr and took him to be from the progeny of Isaac. He mentioned his name as Khidrun b. 'Amyayil.

Ibn Qutayba (d. after 355 AH/965) cited Wahb b. Munabbih (who was known as giving false reports and stories) as saying that Khidr’s name was Balya, the son of Malkan who was a prominent king. And he took Khidr’s lineage to go back to the prophet Noah.

Muqaddasi (d. after 355 AH/965) identified Khidr, on the basis of different sources, with prophets such as [[Jeremiah]] or [[Elisha]]. According to him, many people take Khidr to be [[Dhu l-Qarnayn]]’s cousin and minister.

One strange view about Khidr’s lineage is that his father or mother were Iranians or Romans, or that his father was the [[Pharaoh]] who lived in the period of Moses, and some people took him to be an immediate son of Adam.

Khidr’s name is also pronounced as Khaḍir (Arabic: الخَضِر). The word, “khidr”, in Arabic means greenness. His appellation as Khidr is said to be because places where he sits or says [[prayers]] on will become green.

Khidr’s name is not mentioned in the Quran, but in 18:60-82 there is a mysterious story of the prophet, Moses, meeting a righteous person, who is described as “one of Our servants, on whom We had bestowed Mercy from Ourselves and whom We had taught knowledge from Our Own Presence” (the Quran, 18:65). Almost all Muslim scholars took this righteous servant of God to be Khidr.

Moses travelled to Majma' al-Bahrayn (the junction of two seas) together with a young man (according to Islamic sources, Moses’s nephew and successor, [[Joshua]], the son of Nun). When Moses asked his companion to bring the fish they had taken with them to eat, Joshua told him that the fish had come back to life and entered the sea, and he forgot to let Moses know about this. Moses took this to be a sign of the person he was looking for. So they returned to the place where the fish had come back to life. They met a person who was endowed with divine mercy and knowledge. This person was Khidr. Moses asked Khidr to permit him to accompany him, but Khidr told him: “you will not be able to have patience with me!” Moses insisted on the company and so they moved on together provided that Moses ask no questions about whatever actions he saw until the truth was revealed. They boarded a ship and Khidr started to scuttle the ship. Moses objected to him, and Khidr reproached him for breaking his promise not to ask any questions. They moved on and saw a teenage boy on the way, and Khidr abruptly killed the boy. Moses objected to Khidr again, and Khidr reproached him for the second time. They then entered a village whose residents refused to give them food, but Khidr started to reconstruct a wall in that village that was on the point of falling down. Again Moses objected to him, and this time Khidr told him that this was a parting between them. However, he explained the reasons behind his odd actions to Moses: he had scuttled the ship because it was owned by some poor people, and if it were scuttled, the king would withdraw from usurping the ship. He killed the teenage boy because he would lead his faithful parents to infidelity. And beneath that wall was a treasure belonging to two teenage orphans from a beneficent father, and the reconstruction of the wall would help them have it after their maturity.

According to a hadith in [[Sahih al-Bukhari]] and [[Sahih Muslim]], [['Abd Allah b. 'Abbas]] had an argument with another person about the identity of Moses’s master. So they went to [[Ubayy b. Ka'b]] to settle their dispute. He cited a remark by [[the Prophet Muhammad (s)]]: “Moses was among a group of Israelite people. Someone went to him and asked him if he knew anyone more knowledgeable and wiser than himself. “No!” replied Moses. Then God revealed to him that there was someone wiser than him: His servant, Khidr. Moses asked God how to meet him. God specified a fish as a sign and told him that if he lost the fish, he had to go back all the way to meet Khidr. This hadith from the Prophet (s) mentioned the name of Khidr, and states that the reason why Moses departed to Majma' al-Bahrayn (the junction of two seas) was to meet Khidr.

According to another hadith, in response to [[Sa'id b. Jubayr]]’s question, Ibn 'Abbas said that Moses in this story is the well-known Israelite prophet, Moses the son of Amran. He accused [[Nuf al-Bakkali]] of lying because he took this Moses to be someone else, and on some accounts, he called him an enemy of God.

Many various elements of the story of Moses and Khidr in Islamic sources, especially Quranic exegeses, have their origin in [[Muqatil b. Sulayman]]’s views. In his exegesis, he tried to specify the exact locations of their travels and their motivations. He took Khidr to be the prophet Elisha, since his knowledge is as vast as the six skies and earths. According to Muqatil, he lived where the two rivers, Rass and Kurr, met on the other side of the Azerbaijan areas and pour into the sea. On his account, Moses met Khidr clothes in an island while wearing woolen, and Khidr immediately knew him with his God-given knowledge. Muqatil interpreted the word, “mercy”, in the Quran, 18:56 as prophethood, and took Khidr to be a prophet like Moses. For Muqatil, the superiority of Khidr’s knowledge to Moses’s is a matter of differences made by God between His prophets, not that Khidr had a position superior to prophethood.

===Al-Fakhr al-Razi’s View===

[[Ibn Hajar al-'Asqalani]] (d. 852 AH/1448) mentioned Khidr in his ''al-Isaba'' and gave a detailed account of him. He discussed the question whether Khidr counted as one of the [[Sahaba]] on the assumption that he lived until the time of the Prophet Muhammad (s). He said that none of the early biographers considered Khidr to be one of the Sahaba. Ibn Hajar rejected stories about Khidr’s life.

Abu l-Faraj b. Jawzi (d. 597 AH/1200) wrote an independent work concerning Khidr under ''’Ujalat al-muntazir fi sharh hal al-Khadir''. The book is not available today, but ibn Kathir and Haji Khalifa had seen the book, and ibn Jawzi provided a summary of it.

Different parts of the story contain resources for Sufi readings and literary metaphors. Inspired by the story, [[Rumi]] assimilated a Sufi’s body to a ship that should be “scuttled” and then repaired by love of Khidr (a master). Ibn 'Arabi discovered a relationship between the three exotic actions done by Khidr during the journey and the events in Moses’s own life: scuttling the ship is relevant to Moses being rescued from the Nile river when he was a baby; killing a teenage boy with Moses killing a Copt; and not asking for a wage for reconstructing the wall with Moses drawing water from the well for [[Shu'ayb]]’s daughters in [[Midian]].

A controversial issue among Sufis is the prophethood of Khidr and his comparison with Moses with respect to knowledge and ranking. They mostly take Khidr’s knowledge to be from God, taking prophecy to be exterior knowledge. According to ibn 'Arabi, people are ranked differently with respect to their proximity to God. People in each rank have perceptions of their own, of which people of other ranks are unaware, as Khidr told Moses: God has given me knowledge of things that you are unaware of, and has given you knowledge of things that I am unaware of.

In an explanation of Khidr’s longevity, [[Ibn Abi Jumhur al-Ihsa'i]] (alive in 904 AH/1498) took the rivers in the Quran to refer to the knowledge of truths leading to a true eternal life, from which Khidr drank. The spring of this water is the spring of [[wilaya]] and the source of divine succession. Whoever drinks it will live forever and will have an eternal life in the heaven.

==Khidr’s Footsteps==