"He said, 'If thou wouldst follow me, then question me not about anything, till I make mention of it to thee.' So they went on till, when they had embarked upon a ship, he made a hole therein. He said, 'Didst thou make a hole in it in order to drown its people? Thou hast done a monstrous thing!' He said, 'Did I not say unto thee that thou wouldst not be able to bear patiently with me?' He said, 'Take me not to task for having forgotten, nor make me suffer much hardship on account of what I have done.'"
Quran 18:70-73
Well, that didn't take long. We're continuing our discussion of the 18th surah, al-Kahf, "The Cave." Yesterday Khidr made Moses promise that he would be patient with what he saw and not ask him any questions, and that falls apart immediately. They get in a boat and Khidr makes a hole, which causes Moses to ask if he actually intended to kill everyone. Khidr wants to end the partnership immediately, but Moses agrees to not ask any more questions.
While we'll wait until the end to get out the deeper meaning, at least according to Khidr and later generations of Muslim scholars, we can at least get started. Nasr tells us: "If this account is interpreted as a symbolic narrative for the journey of the soul, the ship may then symbolize the body, which carries individuals across the sea of material existence and allows them to perform acts of worship; Khidr's breaking the ship can thus represent the manner in which the hold of the body upon the soul may be 'broken' through spiritual exercises and asceticism.'" (p. 753)
Quran 18:70-73
Well, that didn't take long. We're continuing our discussion of the 18th surah, al-Kahf, "The Cave." Yesterday Khidr made Moses promise that he would be patient with what he saw and not ask him any questions, and that falls apart immediately. They get in a boat and Khidr makes a hole, which causes Moses to ask if he actually intended to kill everyone. Khidr wants to end the partnership immediately, but Moses agrees to not ask any more questions.
While we'll wait until the end to get out the deeper meaning, at least according to Khidr and later generations of Muslim scholars, we can at least get started. Nasr tells us: "If this account is interpreted as a symbolic narrative for the journey of the soul, the ship may then symbolize the body, which carries individuals across the sea of material existence and allows them to perform acts of worship; Khidr's breaking the ship can thus represent the manner in which the hold of the body upon the soul may be 'broken' through spiritual exercises and asceticism.'" (p. 753)
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