In the third story related in sūrat al-Kahf, we learn that Mūsa a.s. goes in search of knowledge and his search leads him to al-Khiḍr. Al-Khiḍr has been granted special knowledge from Allāh, knowledge which he acts upon as the story unfolds. Mūsā requests to accompany al-Khiḍr to learn from him, who in turn agrees on the condition that no questions are asked until he speaks.
Mūsā is to be a silent observer. A student patiently processing what he learns – allowing room for comprehension to take place – before he is speaks or acts.
At their first stop, they get on a boat, and al-Khiḍr promptly damages it by tearing away a plank, Mūsā forgets their condition and speaks out. Eventually this leads them to part ways, but not before al-Khiḍr gives an explanation.
About the ship he damaged, he says,
أَمَّا السَّفِينَةُ فَكَانَتْ لِمَسَاكِينَ يَعْمَلُونَ فِي الْبَحْرِ فَأَرَدتُّ أَنْ أَعِيبَهَا وَكَانَ وَرَاءَهُم مَّلِكٌ يَأْخُذُ كُلَّ سَفِينَةٍ غَصْبًا
﴾As for the ship, it belonged to poor people working at sea. So I intended to cause defect in it as there was after them a king who seized every [good] ship by force.﴿ Al-Kahf:79
We know that al-Khiḍr wasn’t acting of his own accord. He was directly implementing the commands of Allāh. And behind every seemingly evil action was a wisdom and a far reaching benefit.
But studying this verse, I was left with a lingering question; if the king seized *every* good ship by force and out of injustice, wouldn’t it have served a greater interest to stop the king rather than damage one ship by removing a plank? Surely, the king will continue to harm others as he would have harmed this particular group of poor people. So why wasn’t al-Khiḍr given the authority from Allāh to stop the king directly?
Then it dawned on me that this verse held an incredible tarbawī lesson for us.
Not every single one of us is in the position or has the ability to bring about monumental, revolutionary changes. None of us have the ability to go head to head with the great evil forces that wreck havoc on earth, and were we to try, the results would be messy, disastrous and perhaps lead to a worse situation than the one before.
But every single one of us has the ability to ‘remove a plank’. To stop corruption in the everyday sphere. To not cheat people—when we buy and when we sell and when we love; to not be unjust in our relationships; to not take more than we give; to not tread on other people’s rights; to not oppress those under our care; to not indulge for a day and share the extra with the one in need; and maybe just maybe to go to our next door neighbour and see if he is in distress and, if possible, to push away the cause of his distress.
None of us are able to stop our lives in order to save humanity. But in our own unique journeys that we are on, we are all able to take small detours and, wherever possible, take small actions to try and alter even one life for the better.
[From a course on sūrat al-Kahf that I’m teaching this Ramaḍān, more details here.]
