Al-Kahf · Makki · ayah 74 of 110

Al-Kahf 18:74

فَٱنطَلَقَا حَتَّىٰٓ إِذَا لَقِيَا غُلَـٰمًا فَقَتَلَهُۥ قَالَ أَقَتَلْتَ نَفْسًا زَكِيَّةًۢ بِغَيْرِ نَفْسٍ لَّقَدْ جِئْتَ شَيْـًٔا نُّكْرًا

“So they set out, until when they met a boy, he [i.e., al-Khiḍr] killed him. [Moses] said, "Have you killed a pure soul for other than [having killed] a soul? You have certainly done a deplorable thing."”

Saheeh International

Essence

The word Musa chooses for what was done means a thing the heart cannot place: a face you cannot recognise.

A reflection

The Qur'an supplies almost none of the details

Most readers arrive with a settled picture: a small child, playing, struck down.

One commentary lists, item by item, what the verse does not say to us. Whether he was playing with other boys or alone. Whether he was a believer or not. Whether he was grown or small. How he was killed.

And then states the conclusion plainly: there is nothing in the Qur'an's wording to indicate any of these.

The commentaries then divide, with evidence on both sides, and it is worth seeing both.

One group holds he was grown. Their argument is textual. Musa says without a life, which implies a life taken might have made it answerable. A child would not be. One early authority says he was a youth who robbed the road between two villages.

The other group holds he had not reached maturity. The word used usually names someone who has not, and Musa calls the soul pure.

And the word for pure has two readings. One commentary records that the majority read it one way and others another. It reports a distinction. One form means a soul that never sinned, the other a soul that sinned and turned back.

So even the adjective is not settled.

In one family three people are certain what colour a car was, and they do not agree, and nobody ever wrote it down. The certainty is real and the record is empty.

This matters more here than anywhere else in the surah. A reader who has filled in the blanks is arguing with their own picture. The commentaries themselves declined to fill them in.

The full entry has 7 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.