Al-Kahf · Makki · ayah 79 of 110

Al-Kahf 18:79

أَمَّا ٱلسَّفِينَةُ فَكَانَتْ لِمَسَـٰكِينَ يَعْمَلُونَ فِى ٱلْبَحْرِ فَأَرَدتُّ أَنْ أَعِيبَهَا وَكَانَ وَرَآءَهُم 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.”

Saheeh International

Essence

The word for the poor men who owned the boat shares a root with the rudder that stops a ship lurching.

A reflection

The word for a flaw also names a man's private bag

The verb he uses is not the verb for damaging. It is the verb for putting a flaw into something.

One lexicon says these letters hold two words that sit a long way apart.

The first is a defect. A wall takes this verb when a flaw shows in it, and a man who falls on people with fault-finding is named from it.

The second is a bag: the one a man keeps his own clothes in.

And both Sahihs record the Prophet calling the Ansar by that word, his bag. One lexicon reads it as meaning those trusted with what is private.

So one root gives a flaw and a confidence.

Which is exactly what the hole in that boat turned out to be. From outside it was a defect. From inside it was a thing entrusted, known to one man, that kept the boat with its owners.

A shepherd notches an ear, and from a distance that is damage to an animal. Up close it is the only reason the animal comes back to the right farm.

So the verse is not saying he damaged the boat for a good reason. The word itself holds both halves: what shows as a flaw, and what is kept privately.

And this is the only time the Qur'an uses this verb.

One man, putting a mark into a hull, with the reason in his pocket, in front of somebody who could only see the hole.

The full entry has 5 more reflections, questions to sit with, and "Live it today" - with the words, the roots and the tafsir alongside. Free, no account, works offline.