Al-Kahf · Makki · ayah 19 of 110

Al-Kahf 18:19

وَكَذَٰلِكَ بَعَثْنَـٰهُمْ لِيَتَسَآءَلُوا۟ بَيْنَهُمْ ۚ قَالَ قَآئِلٌ مِّنْهُمْ كَمْ لَبِثْتُمْ ۖ قَالُوا۟ لَبِثْنَا يَوْمًا أَوْ بَعْضَ يَوْمٍ ۚ قَالُوا۟ رَبُّكُمْ أَعْلَمُ بِمَا لَبِثْتُمْ فَٱبْعَثُوٓا۟ أَحَدَكُم بِوَرِقِكُمْ هَـٰذِهِۦٓ إِلَى ٱلْمَدِينَةِ فَلْيَنظُرْ أَيُّهَآ أَزْكَىٰ طَعَامًا فَلْيَأْتِكُم بِرِزْقٍ مِّنْهُ وَلْيَتَلَطَّفْ وَلَا يُشْعِرَنَّ بِكُمْ أَحَدًا

“And similarly,[782] We awakened them that they might question one another. Said a speaker from among them, "How long have you remained [here]?" They said, "We have remained a day or part of a day." They said, "Your Lord is most knowing of how long you remained. So send one of you with this silver coin of yours to the city and let him look to which is the best of food and bring you provision from it and let him be cautious. And let no one be aware of you.”

Saheeh International

Essence

The first words after three centuries are a wrong guess about the time, and the second are an order for lunch.

A reflection

He walks into the market with the wrong king's money

They woke up hungry. One commentary says so plainly, and adds that the one they sent was the youngest of them.

Now look at the money. The word for it is the word for silver coin, and the commentaries record two details about theirs. One says their coins were large, like the hooves of a young camel. Another says they bore the image of the king who reigned in their own time.

So a young man is sent down into a town he thinks he left yesterday morning. He carries heavy silver stamped with the face of a king three centuries dead, to buy bread without being noticed.

That is the funniest and most frightening errand in the Qur'an, and the ayah does not comment on it at all. It simply gives the instructions.

A coin dealer sees the mild version every week. Somebody brings in a banknote that came out of a grandmother's drawer, withdrawn from circulation forty years ago. It is perfectly genuine. The signature is right, the paper is right, the printing is better than anything current. At a till it is worth nothing, and the person holding it is briefly unable to believe that.

The ayah leaves him walking down the hill with his purse. The thing that will give him away is not his face, or his clothes, or his accent. It is his money.

Everything you are carrying was minted in a particular reign.

The full entry has 6 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.